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History, Prophecy, and Gospel. 



EXPOSITORY SERMONS 



3|uterttatfonal ^unuar ^c^ool Leggong 



For 1891. 



EDITED BY 



E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, D.D., LL.D., 



PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY. 



/ 

DEC 1 ,),/ ' 

r"7A/K 



A&j? 



BOSTON: 
SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS. 

1891. 







«•# 



Copyright, 1890, 
By Silver, Burdett & Company. 



iHntbetBttg ^Jrrss: 

JOHS Wilson IND Son. CAMBRIDGE. 



PREFACE. 



/r T N HE main character of this book will be obvious 
to every reader. It is not meant to sup- 
plant the usual lesson helps, but to supplement 
them. The expositions purposely avoid all specially 
fine exegesis, only presenting, so to speak, the 
gross anatomy of the passages. Good teachers are 
aware that this is quite as important as the more 
minute work, and much less likely to be well set 
forth in those discussions of the lessons which are 
accessible to all. By such a treatment we have 
succeeded in keeping up throughout a strong homi- 
letical interest along with the exegetical. It is 
hoped that the volume will do something to stimu- 
late among Baptists the habit of expository preach- 
ing. It certainly contains a number of sermons 
which may not inappropriately be taken as models 
of this. With the numerous amenities of a minis- 
ter's lot goes this hardship, that he can rarely hear 
his brethren preach, particularly those resident at a 
distance from him. The opportunity of reading one 



IV PREFACE. 

another's sermons furnishes us a pleasant though 
partial solace for this. Baptists are to be congratu- 
lated upon the evidence offered by these sermons 
that piety, soundness of mind, knowledge of Scrip- 
ture, with reverence for and ability to expound 
the same, are so widely disseminated in the de- 
nomination. We have sought to make the matter 
edifying and helpful, not only to ministers and 
Sunday-school workers, but to general readers as 
well. The Editor confidently believes that the 
resume herein given of Old Testament history be- 
tween Solomon and the Captivity is to be matched 
in correctness and vivacity nowhere in the whole 
literature of the subject. The preachers for the 
second half cultivate a less recondite but equally 
important field, producing an abundant harvest of 
the richest spiritual food. May God accompany 
with his favor these efforts to make known his 

blessed Truth ! 

THE EDITOR. 



Brown University, 

Nov. 11, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



jFtrst (Quarter. 



Lesson 



Page 



I. January 4. The Kingdom Divided 3 

By Rev. J B. Gough Pidge, D. D. 

IT. January 11. Idolatry in Israel 13 

By Rev. F. W. Ryder. 

III. January 18. God's Care of Elijah 23 

By Rev. P. A. Nordell. 

IV. January 25. Elijah and the Prophets of Baal . . . 33 

By Rev. C. J. Baldwin. 

V. February 1. Elijah at Horeb 43 

By Rev. A. G. Upham. 

VI. February 8. Ahab's Covetousness 52 

By Rev. George E. Merrill. 

VII. February 15. Elijah taken to Heaven 62 

By Rev. Nathan E. Wood, D. D. 

VIII. February 22. Elijah's Successor 72 

By Rev. J. L. Cheney, Ph. D. 

IX. March 1. The Shtjnammite's Son 82 

By Rev. C. H. Watson. 

X. March 8. Naaman healed 92 

By Rev. George S. Goodspeed. 

XL March 15. Gehazi punished 102 

By Rev. B. A. Greene. 

XII. March 22. Elisha's Defenders 112 

By Professor George R. Hovey. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

SccouiJ (Quarter. 

Page 

I. April 5. Saved from Famine 125 

By Rev. Professor T. Harwood Pattison, D D. 
II. April 12. The Good and Evil in Jehu 135 

By Rev. Edward Judson, D. D. 

III. April 19. Jonah sent to Nineveh 144 

By Rev. W. 0. Stearns. 

IV. April 26. Nineveh brought to Repentance .... 153 

By Rev. John H. Mason. 

V. May 3. Israel often reproved I 62 

By Rev. F. W. Bakeman, D. D. 

VI. May 10. Israel's Overthrow foretold 172 

By Rev. D. F. Estes. 

VII. May 17. Sin the Cause of Sorrow 181 

By Rev. Thomas D. Anderson. 

VIII. May 24. Captivity of Israel 191 

By Professor Ira M. Price, Ph. D. 

IX. May 31. The Temple repaired 199 

By Rev. William W. Landrum, D. D. 

X. June 7. IIezekiah, the Good King 209 

By Rev. Thomas S. Barbour. 

XI. June 14. The Book of the Law found 218 

By Rev. George E. Horr, J r. 

XII June 21. Captivity of Judah 228 

By Professor Shailer Mathews. 



anjirTJ Quarter. 

I. July 5. The Word made Flesh 241 

By the Editor. 

II. .lul\ L2. Chbist's First Disciples . . 251 

Bj Rev. Professor Bunyan Spencer. 

III. .lulv L9. Christ's Firsx Miracle 2G0 

Bj Rev. W. R. 1. Smith. 



IV 



\ I. 



VII. 



VIII. 



IX. 



X. 



XI 



XII. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii 

Page 

July 26. Christ and Nicodemus 268 

By Rev. E. C. Dargan, D. D. 

August 2 Christ at Jacob's Well 275 

By Rev. Professor R. S. Colwell. 

August 9. Christ's Authority 285 

By Rev. John Humpstone, D. D. 

August 16. The Five Thousand fed 294 

By Rev. Professor John M. English. 

August 23. Christ the Bread or Life 304 

By Rev. Francis Bellamy. 

August 30. Christ at the Feast 314 

By Rev. 0. P. Gifford. 

September 6. The True Children of God ..... 324 
By Rev. W. H. P. Faunce. 

September 13. Christ and the Blind Man .... 331 
By Rev. P. S. Moxom. 

September 20. Christ the Good Shepherd .... 341 
By Rev. Henry M. King, D. D. 



iFourti) (Quarter. 

I. October 4. Christ Raising Lazarus 355 

By Rev. F. E. Dewhurst. 

II. October 11. Christ foretelling his Death .... 364 
By Rev. Edward Braislin, D. D. 

III. October 18. Washing the Disciples' Feet 373 

By Rev. Lemuel C. Barnes. 

IV. October 25. Christ comforting his Disciples . . . 382 

By Rev. President Albion W. Small, Ph. D. 

V. November 1. Christ the True Vine 389 

By Rev. C. C. Brown. 

VI. November 8. The Work of the Holy Spirit .... 397 
By Rev. Thomas E. Bartlett. 

VII. November 15. Christ's Prayer for his Disciples . . 407 
By Rev. John R. Gow 



viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Lesson Page 

VIII. November 22. Christ betrayed .... ... 410 

By Rev. Professor W. N. Clarke, D. D. 

IX. November 29. Christ before Pilate 425 

By Rev. F. Clatworthy, D. D. 

X. December 0. CHRIST CRUCIFIED 446 

By Rev. Z. Grenell, D. D. 

XI. December 13. Christ risen 444 

By Rev. Charles A. Reese. 

XII. December 20. The Risen Christ and his Disciples . 453 
By Rev. Professor J. M. Stifler, D. D. 



THE FIRST QUARTER. 



LESSONS FROM KINGS AND PROPHETS. 



Lkssos 




I. 


January 4. 


II. 


11. 


III. 


18. 


IV. 


25. 


V. 


February 1. 


VI. 


8. 



" The Kingdom Divided." By Rev. J. B. Gougii 

PlDGE, D. D. 

" Idolatry in Israel." By Rev. "F. W. Ryder. 

" God's Care of Elijah." By Rev. P. A. Xordell. 

" Elijah and the Prophets of Baal." By Rev. C. J. 

Baldwin. 
"Elijah at Horeb." By Rev. A. G. Upham. 
" Ahab's Covetousness." By Rev. George E. 
Merrill. 
VII. " 15. "Elijah Taken to Heaven." By Rev. Nathan E. 

Wood, D. D. 
VIII. " 22. "Elijah's Successor." By Rev. J. L. Cheney, 

Ph.D. 
'The Shuuammite's Son." By Rev. C. H. Watson. 
'Naaman Healed." By Rev. George S. Good- 
speed. 
; Gehazi Punished." By Rev. B. A. Greene. 
' Elisha's Defenders." By Professor George R. 

HOVEY. 



IX. 


March 1. 


X. 


8. 


XI. 


15. 


UL 


" 22. 



ilestfon I. ifianuatp 4. 



THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. 

1 Kings xii: 1-17. 
By Rev. J. B. GOUGH PIDGE, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 

THE primitive constitution of all the historic nations was 
democracy, which everywhere gave way in the course 
of time to monarchy. To neither part of this law does the 
history of Israel offer exception. The feeble kingship of the 
Homeric Greeks and of early Germany precisely resembles 
that of Saul. His authority, like that of Agamemnon or 
Clovis, was at first sharply limited, and the plots of anti- 
monarchists, using David as their rallying-centre, thwarted 
him at every turn. In those great rulers, David and Solo- 
mon, royalty completely triumphed, yet never so as quite 
to crush the democratic spirit, rebellion being all the time 
certain to occur the instant it had the slightest chance of 
success. 

Accordingly, no sooner had Solomon been laid to rest in 
his royal sepulchre in the city of David than his splendid 
empire was split in twain, far the larger and fairer por- 
tion of it throwing off allegiance and setting up a separate 
kingdom. The leader in this was Jeroboam, son of Nebat, 
a young scion of the tribe of Ephraim. Like many a lad 
since, he had early gone to the capital to seek his for- 
tune. His remarkable ability and industry attracting the 
king's notice, he was advanced to the position of super- 
intendent over the work of fortification committed to his 



4 THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. [Eikst Quaktkk. 

tribe. Like his great ancestor, Joseph, he was now chief 
among his brethren ; but God had destined him for yet 
greater things. Ahijah the Shilonite met him as he walked 
alone in the field, and teaching, prophet-like, by object-les- 
sons and startling similes, seized Jeroboam's garment and 
rent it into a dozen strips. Ten of these he gave back to 
the owner. Then to the astonished youth he divulged the 
meaning of this. As he had rent Jeroboam's robe, so would 
God rend Solomon's kingdom ; and as he had given into 
Jeroboam's hand ten fragments of the torn cloth, so would 
God give Jeroboam ten of the tribes of Israel to rule, leav- 
ing the house of Solomon but two. 

The prophet declared that this was not to occur during 
Solomon's lifetime ; but the young man's ambition was so 
fired by the prospect of power that he could not wait the 
slow development of Providence, and sought to hasten the 
consummation himself. By some act of rebellion he in- 
curred the king's hostility, and was compelled to flee into 
Egypt, where he remained till Solomon's death. 

The leaders of the liberal party in Israel then summoned 
him home to head their campaign for relief from the bur- 
dens which Solomon's lavish expenditure had imposed up- 
on the State. When, therefore, Solomon's son appeared at 
Shechem to receive the crown, "Jeroboam and all the 
congregation of Israel came, and spake unto Rehoboam, 
saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous : now therefore 
make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy 
yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee. 
And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then 
come again to me. And the people departed." 

It was a critical moment for Rehoboam, — the turning- 
point in his life. The people's complaints were just, and 
their bearing, though proud and independent, was concil- 
iatory ; but it was very plain that they were in earnest. 



Lksson I.J THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. 5 

Rehoboam would have been wise to give heed. But in 
those distant days, when constitutional liberty had not yet 
begun to be dreamed of, kings were not so used to such 
displays of spirit, or so sagacious in dealing with them, as 
they have since become. Even in our day they are none 
too wise. 

The king was not without sage counsellors. Cabinet min- 
isters who had grown gray in his father's service and im- 
bibed his wisdom and his knowledge of statecraft, were all 
about him. To these, with a show of respect, he at first 
turns. He inquires, " How do ye advise that I may answer 
this people ? And they spake unto him, saying, If thou wilt 
be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, 
and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they 
will be thy servants for ever." 

Never was a king in a governmental crisis blessed with 
better counsel. It was the very quintessence of political 
wisdom. If he had but been guided by it, how different the 
after-fortunes of the chosen people ! Had kings always acted 
on such principles, how much less bloody the trail of human 
history ! To serve the people, the ruler's highest duty, — 
where, even yet, have men in high place learned this lesson ? 
In the noble motto, Ich dien, — "I serve, ; ' on the Prince of 
Wales's coat-of-arms is indeed a recognition of the principle ; 
but how few monarchs have worn such a motto graven on 
their hearts ! Peter the Great, we know, served his people in 
the ship-yards of Holland and England ; but his example is 
a singular one as well in the fact that he served at all as in 
the peculiar mode of his service. Kings usually require the 
most obsequious ministrations from their people, without 
a thought of any obligation in return. " Public office is a 
public trust" — a late utterance of an American Chief Ma- 
gistrate — is the high- water mark of political conviction 
touching the duties of civil officers ; but where in the annals 



6 THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. [First Quarter. 

of modern States, except in rare instances, do we find any 
but the most imperfect embodiment of this sentiment in offi- 
cial conduct ? For a ruler to be true to his trust, doing to 
the full what the people expect of him, — that is much ; but 
Rehoboam's counsellors urged upon him a far higher ideal 
than this. They would have had him use his royal office as 
Saint Louis of France did, not in prescribed ways only, but 
in all possible ways, as a means of positive blessing to his 
subjects. Here is a conception of political duty upon which 
even these days of cumulative civic thought have witnessed 
no advance. 

Alas ! bad advisers too were about the young Rehoboam, — 
youths who had grown up with him, without experience or 
wisdom, and filled with the haughty notions of prerogative 
bred in the atmosphere of a despotic court. They were in 
character like the king himself, — swaggerers, headstrong, 
puffed up with the pride of power and place. Nought cared 
they for the people, or their complaints. What mattered it 
whether those were just or not ? Subjects must learn not to 
find fault with their rulers. Let them know that the only 
result of their whining will be severer punishments and 
still heavier taxes. Then they will hold their tongues 
and submit. This, said they, is the answer to give : " My 
little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. And 
now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I 
will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with 
whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions " [scourges 
bristling with sharp points]. 

If the advice of the older counsellors had been the acme 
of political wisdom, surely this was the nadir of folly. In 
fact, it doubtless proceeded not so much from malignity as 
from sheer stupidity and utter ignorance of affairs. But 
the crazy counsel harmonized with Rehoboam's inclinations ; 
so that when after the three days of deliberation the people 



Lesson I.] THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. 7 

came for his reply, he " answered roughly, and forsook the 
old men's counsel that they gave him ; and spake to them 
after the counsel of the young men." 

Accustomed to see individuals cravenly submissive in 
their presence, despots with difficulty understand the stub- 
born spirit of large popular bodies, especially when fervently 
enlisted in a cause which they deem just. Blind to the 
Titanic forces that sway such a multitude, they are never 
prepared for firm opposition, but expect to see it crumble 
away at a word. How little did the lords and ladies whose 
luxurious follies and extravagances helped to bring on the 
French Ee volution dream of the volcano over which they 
sported ! Riding to court or chase on their splendid steeds, 
what feared they from the scowls which the crowd cast after 
them ? What hearts in those merry groups ever sank with 
foreboding at thought of the settlement so soon to come 
between the high-born in their luxury and the peasants in 
their squalor and starvation ! How impossible for those gay 
revellers to see in the dull, down-trodden people the courage 
to assert their rights against brave nobles and gentlemen ac- 
customed to arms ! It took the sack of the Bastile to awaken 
them ; and it required grim Ee volution to open the eyes of 
Eehoboam and the witless fops who had essayed to guide 
him. 

Remonstrance had failed ; nothing remained for the op- 
pressed but to cast off utterly the yoke which galled them. 
" So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto 
them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion 
have we in David ? neither have we inheritance in the son 
of Jesse : to your tents, O Israel : now see to thine own house, 
David. So Israel departed unto their tents." 

It was the old war-cry heard once before in the rebellion 
of Sheba against David, heeded now by the entire nation, 
except the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. But while 



8 THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. [First Quarter. 

the disruption under David's rule was only temporary, this 
time it proved final. Israel separated from the house of 
David, never to return. In all the turbulent days that fol- 
lowed, the northern tribes never showed any disposition to 
resume their old allegiance. Commonly after such revolu- 
tions there are left many adherents of the old regime 
who continually plot and plan for its restoration. If any 
such remained in Israel, they are unknown to history, and 
have accomplished nothing ; the secession was complete and 
absolute. 

From the point of view of the secular historian, this was 
merely a bold uprising against intolerable oppression, a 
splendid fore-gleam of that later-day temper when men 
should have more adequate conceptions of popular rights. 
Israel was stirred by no such peals of eloquence as fell 
from the lips of Patrick Henry. Jeroboam inculcated no 
such broad political ideas as did Eichard Henry Lee and 
Samuel Adams, nor did he address the rebels in chosen 
words like those which have immortalized our Declaration 
of Independence. Still, Israel's secession betrayed the same 
spirit of resistance to tyranny that has stirred the men 
of later ages to their noblest achievements, and written 
in never-fading characters the most splendid and inspir- 
ing pages of history. In their bold remonstrance against 
wrongs we seem to hear the barons of England before 
King John demanding Magna Charta, or our American 
fathers expostulating with George III. over the abuses 
which brought about the Revolutionary War. 

But the Bible carries us farther than the ordinary histo- 
rian could have done, in proclaiming the ultimate reason for 
Israel's course. In reading of human affairs we are com- 
monly so absorbed in the actions of men that we fail to trace 
God's hand. The Old Testament never permits this. It con- 
tinually asserts and reiterates the divine government of the 



Lesson I.] THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. 9 

world. " Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the 
people ; for the cause was from the Lord." 

God was in Israel's history, but he is equally in all history. 
He guided Israel with a very special purpose, yet no more 
truly or constantly than he guides us. Had an inspired 
penman written American history, how differently would it 
read from what is set down in our manuals ! Sometimes in 
religious speech we timidly suggest that God may have had 
a purpose in this or that event of our past ; an inspired 
historian would have made God the most prominent factor 
in it all. If from the study of this ancient record we learn 
to interpret our own lives and the lives of all men and all 
nations in the spirit in which the sacred historian wrote of 
Israel and Judah, we shall have learned its main lesson, — 
one which no amount of antiquarian research could have 
taught : God rules in this world of ours. He exalts one, 
casts down another, and makes the very wrath of man to 
praise him. 

There are many special lessons in this history, to only a 
few of which can we refer, and that briefly. 

1. Israel's secession "was from the Lord." From terri- 
ble, relentless, persistent tyranny, after due but vain remon- 
strance, subjects have a divine right to free themselves by 
revolution. " The powers that be are ordained of God," but 
no particular form of polity is so. Eulers exist for subjects, 
not subjects for rulers. The government of a nation at any 
time presumably deserves respect and support ; but it may 
forfeit all claim to both by ceasing to fulfil its function as a 
blessing to the people. In certain parts of the world, though 
happily no longer in our own, this truth requires emphasis to- 
day. Still does it need to reverberate in many a monarch's 
ears : thy subjects " will be thy servants forever " on the con- 
dition, and only thereon, that " thou wilt be a servant unto 
this people, and wilt serve them and speak good words unto 



10 THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. [First Quarter. 

them." If other policy be persisted in, "see to thine own 
house, David." 

2. observe the pusillanimity of pride. Pride seems a 
source of strength : it is rather a source of weakness; it 
prevents one from acting according to his best light. Keho- 
boam must in his first calm moment have felt convinced of 
the superior wisdom of the course urged by the older coun- 
sellors. His own better judgment, young as he was, would 
have suggested it. But the words of the younger men ap- 
pealed to his pride and momentarily blinded him to their 
folly. Perhaps he feared that these coxcombs would laugh 
at him if he followed the conciliatory method, while he 
foolishly hoped to win their admiration by bluster and 
brag. How many a young man is equally a fool, — too 
haughty to follow his better judgment, too proud to accept 
good advice ! 

3. Consider how expensive such senseless pride may be- 
come. It cost Pehoboam far the best part of his dominions. 
Israel rather than Judah fills the chief place in the history 
of the next few centuries. Henceforth until the fall of 
Samaria Israel is ever upon the historian's page; Judah occu- 
pying a subordinate place. Israel possessed the fertile plains 
and the sea-coast ; Judah had nothing but her barren hills. 
It was Jerusalem alone that saved Judah from utter insig- 
nificance. The history of Israel is that of a nation ; Judah 
consisted of but a single great and splendid city. Kehoboam's 
pride was an expensive luxury, — it cost him the richest jew- 
els in his crown. Ah ! to many a man since has pride proved 
equally dear, costing him the chief portion of that heavenly 
patrimony which our Father bestows at birth upon all his 
sons. 

4. Mark the peril of disregarding the wisdom of age. Had 
Reboboam consulted only his seniors, he would have taken 
the right course. This his pride forbade. Was he not king? 



Lesson I.] THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. 11 

Old men, fogies, the Bismarcks and the Gladstones, had 
carried on the State long enough. Like William of Ger- 
many in our day, he would show what wonders fresh blood 
and brain could do. Besides, was he not getting all the 
light he could', inquiring of all rather than of few ? Many 
a youth has thus cheated himself into the belief that he 
was proceeding with great prudence, when in fact he merely 
wished an excuse for some darling folly. Old men are not 
always wise, but they are quite as likely to be so as young 
men ; while a truly wise old man always has a species of wis- 
dom impossible to those of fewer years. Let us by all means 
seek light when we need it ; but may God give us grace to 
go for it to the sources whence it is most sure to come ! 

5. Notice, finally, that serving is the only way to win true 
fortunes. How numerous are the applications of this prin- 
ciple in the household, in the workshop, in society, in gov- 
ernment ! If employers only treated their employees in this 
spirit, how it would assuage the friction between the two, to 
the advantage of both ! If laborers always acted in this 
temper of love, what added strength it would assure to 
laboring men's organizations ! If our civil officers recognized 
this principle in their acts and policy, how much more sure, 
upon the average, at any rate, would they be of permanent 
place and power ! We remember the answer of one on being 
justly accused of perverting high office to the most selfish 
purposes : " What are you going to do about it ? " The 
whole world knows that man's fate and execrates his mem- 
ory. Yes, divine truth is valid for men in every station. 
The politician, the ruler, the capitalist, the labor-leader, like 
all other men, would be wise to learn that our highest and 
noblest rights are our duties. 

How perfectly did the course of our divine Lord and 
Saviour illustrate this ! He came to win the world. How 
was it to be done ? Had he been a mere man, he would 



12 THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. [FlBOT Quarter. 

never have sought to attain his end in the way he did. 
He might have made his progress through the world a 
proud triumphal march. He might have disclosed his 
wisdom by colloquies with learned men, his power by great 
and marvellous works, his goodness by ostentatious benefi- 
cence. This would have been man's method. JBut God's 
ways are not as ours. Instead of appearing as a grand 
monarch, ministered unto, courted, and flattered, he came 
as a servant, ministering ever unto others. Instead of be- 
ing rich, he had not where to lay his head. Instead of 
courting the great and wise, he sought the poor and lowly. 
And he has in this world a Name which is above every 
name, at whose mention millions of hearts rise and millions 
of heads bow in loving adoration. He has won the world 
by serving the world. Would you be rich with God's eternal 
gold ? Behold, here is the way ! Wherefore, my brethren, 
" let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," 
who a came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
to give his life a ransom for many." 



ilesflon II. ^January 11. 



IDOLATRY m ISEAEL. 

1 Kings xii: 25-33. 
By Rev. F. W. RYDER, Boston, Mass. 

"TJISTOKY is God teaching by example." All history is 
J- J- that. The vicissitudes of the history of New England, 
not less than those of the history of Israel, publish God's will 
and God's sentiments towards men. The story of every nation 
is an object-lesson hung on the walls of the world's school- 
room, whence the ages as they pass may learn of God. 

But the annals of the Hebrew race possess a peculiar in- 
terest, because in them the divine tuition is divinely inter- 
preted. In the historical books of the Old Testament we 
have the record of a revelation rather than the revelation 
itself. The real revelation lies in the national life, of which 
the books are partly an account, partly an interpretation. 

The importance of Israelitish history lies largely in the 
plainness and authority with which it reveals God's presence 
in human affairs. Perhaps in no period are these divine in- 
structions clearer than in those troublous times that followed 
the disruption of Solomon's kingdom. The previous lesson 
has told us how Israel passed the summit of its glory ; how 
the headstrong vanity of Rehoboam provoked a revolt ; and 
how ten tribes, far the larger and better half, seceded to 
form a new nation. 

Of this Jeroboam became king. Born in humble circum- 
stances, he had risen by dint of his energy and genius to a . 



14 IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. [Fjrst Quarter. 

place so prominent in public affairs that lie was suspected of 
aspiring to royalty. In every age, in spite of custom, caste, 
or condition, the men who are determined to rise will rise. 

OPPORTUNITY. 

Seated at last firmly on his throne, Jeroboam was face to 
face w Lth the opportunity of his life. He stood at the divid- 
ing paths, one of which, though fair to the eye, ran to ruin 
and contempt ; the other, rough and perilous, would, if fol- 
lowed, have brought the nation to prosperity and himself to 
eminent renown. Which would he take ? 

It was a decisive hour in the young ruler's career. His 
future and the fate of a kingdom hung in the balance. 
Should he determine to serve God, work righteousness, 
lighten oppression, promote religion, — should he prove strong 
to do all that Jehovah his God commanded, — he might easily 
make himself the mightiest monarch, and his people the fore- 
most nation of the age. God would then be with him. But 
if he disregarded these high ends, his kingdom would come 
to nought, and his name be a hissing and a by-word. God 
would be against him. 

Strange that Jeroboam did not comprehend this. No les- 
son was more clearly taught in the history of his country. 
Over and over again had it been demonstrated that loyalty 
to Jehovah insured national advancement, and that apostasy 
was a sure forerunner of discord, weakness, ruin. 

Jeroboam is not alone in this fault. For nations and 
rulers to meet and lose such crucial chances is not at all 
uncommon. The Emperor of all the Russias confronts to- 
day a similar situation. He has it in his power to make for 
himself a distinguished name in the catalogue of mankind's 
benefactors. Let him abandon his barbarous policy of rule 
by brute force; let him proclaim liberty, free speech, free 
conscience, and all the other inalienable rights of man ; let 



Lesson II.J IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. 15 

him as a true sovereign devote himself to the social, indus- 
trial, political, and religious welfare of his subjects, and he 
will bring his empire with one bound to the very zenith of 
power and prosperity, gaining for himself a fame second to 
that of few men in all history. Alexis seems as blind as 
Jeroboam to his magnificent opportunity. 

Fifty years ago the Christian Church in America was of- 
fered an even grander privilege. Four million human beings 
groaned in bitter bondage. Their cry passed the ear of man 
unheeded ; their shackled hands outstretched brought no 
deliverer. What a glorious chance for the Church, as the 
champion of the oppressed, to step forward and demand in 
the name of the Lord that the black man have his rights ! 
Duty, righteousness, religion, and humanity alike bade her 
put herself squarely on the side of the slave. Alas ! she did 
not do so. Instead, her ministers, whose business it was to 
proclaim liberty to captives, and the opening of prisons to 
those in bonds, were, many of them, busily ransacking Scrip- 
ture for sanctions to the very wrong that needed righting. 
Not until the skies were red with presages of war, and God's 
indignation flamed across the heavens in tokens plainer than 
the handwriting on Belshazzar's palace- wall, did the Church 
as a whole come into the fight for freedom. 

Not less is to-day, for Church and nation, a day of judg- 
ment. The terrible industrial crisis through which we are 
passing, the rights and wrongs of the working-man, the just 
relation of capital to labor, and of government to both, the 
problem of the black, of the red, and of the yellow race, 
political corruption, commercial monopoly, sectional animos- 
ity, — these are so many bars of divine justice before which 
we are haled, and at which the searching tests of character 
are applied. To-day, as ever, conventionalities, expediences, 
prejudices, array themselves against righteousness, justice, 
truth. Which shall we choose ? 



16 IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. [First Quarter. 

There is, therefore, nothing singular in Jeroboam's case ; 
we all often stand where he stood. Not " once," as Lowell 
hath it, but often — 

li To every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side. 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, 
And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that light." 

One immortal precept Jeroboam's case vividly illustrates, — 
the only safe path is the right path. Our salvation from 
failure and shame lies in being absolutely true to our deepest 
convictions of right, unswervingly loyal to what we know of 
God's will. 

EXPEDIENCY VERSUS RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

Before his great opportunity Jeroboam failed. The causes 
of his downfall were all the more seductive because they 
seemed to be justified by the soundest maxims of govern- 
mental policy. It would never do, he reasoned, to have the 
centre of the national religion in a foreign city, and espe- 
cially in the chief city of the country from which his sub- 
jects had just seceded. They might as safely have the seat 
of government in the capital of a rival nation as to have the 
seat of religion there. If the people continued to go up to 
the prominent feasts at Jerusalem, there was danger of a 
revolution backward. The old ties might prove too strong. 
Religious scruples might overcome political considerations. 
The bonds of a common lineage and history might knit 
themselves again, and his kingdom come to an untimely end. 
It was necessary to isolate the nation religiously as well as 
governmentally. The secession must be complete. 

To this end Jeroboam now devoted his energies. Having 
fortified some of the chief cities of his realm, he set to work 
to create a public sentiment favorable to his scheme. " It is 



Lesson II] IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. 17 

too much," he said to the people, " for you to go up to 
Jerusalem." There was plausibility in this plea. The jour- 
ney was long, laborious, expensive. What was the need 
of it? 

Devices to lighten the stress of duty, or give a liberal in- 
terpretation to moral obligations, are apt to be popular. The 
new arrangement seems to have sprung into general favor at 
once. Following up the advantage thus gained, the king 
established two centres of worship, — one at Bethel, a place 
already sanctified by many sacred events ; the other at Dan, 
on the northern frontier. 

So, for mere political ends, the national connection with 
the religion which God had ordained was broken off. Jero- 
boam had made a fatal mistake. He had set politics before 
religion, chosen convenience instead of duty, made expediency 
take the place of righteousness. Disastrous consequences 
always follow a choice like that. The blunder is one which 
politicians and business men seem especially liable to per- 
petrate. Keen-sighted men are often short-sighted. They 
see vividly, but only at close range, like those party leaders 
whose foresight does not extend beyond the next election. 
Occasionally the whole nation is smitten with moral myopia. 
An immediate emergency eclipses everything else, and ini- 
quitous means are justified by the alleged necessity of get- 
ting through it. The far-reaching consequence, the fateful 
outcome of wrath and ruin, at the peril of which the tem- 
porary success is bought, is not seen at all. 

But the immutable laws move relentlessly on to exact in 
due season their last ounce of penalty. "They enslave their 
children's children who make compromise with sin," saith the 
Delphic Oracle. Thousands of Esaus are all the time ped- 
dling their birthrights for messes of pottage. For the sake 
of temporary gain, or the gratification of a present desire, or 
to tide over an immediate crisis, they put in pawn their 

2 



18 IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. [First Quarter. 

manhood, purity, and honor, and mortgage their future to 
the Devil. 

We see the same continually in business, as men, in their 
haste to be rich, resort to dishonest practices, or attempt 
" short cuts " to fortune. We see it perpetually in politics, 
where the magnificent inheritances of to-morrow are sacri- 
ficed to the petty gains of to-day ; where triumphant elec- 
tioneering becomes paramount to the public weal, and honest 
citizens, lashed into submission by the party whip, assist in 
the passage of infamous measures or the election of infamous 
men. 

This evil tendency is greatly increased by current senti- 
ments about success. Success is a cardinal virtue with most 
of us. We worship the goddess of victory. Having exalted 
to a superlative rank the matter of gaining our end, the 
severity with which we criticise the means is inversely as 
the degree of success hoped for. The great thing nowadays 
is to get ahead, — by honorable courses if one can ; but to get 
ahead. Do we not teach our children so ? To be sure, the 
process will likely involve unpleasant particulars, such as 
defrauding, defeating, and slaying numerous competitors. 
Yet if one wins anyhow a notable victory ; we do not scru- 
tinize closely the stratagems by which he wins. Success 
covers a multitude of sins. The capitalist devours widows' 
houses, starves his workmen, debauches legislatures, defeats 
the public good. Nevertheless, if he becomes a millionnaire, 
all is forgiven. The politician buys votes, subsidizes the 
press, corrupts public sentiment, prostitutes the government 
to y»arty ends. Still, if he carries the election, people are not 
over-inquisitive as to how he did it. It is the man who fails 
whose wicked devices are published and punished. 

Jeroboam felt that he must succeed. Ambition made him 
blind to the moral bearings of his plan. He thought he 
could win, though thwarting God's will and breaking his 



Lesson II.] IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. 19 

explicit commands. In so doing he unsettled the founda- 
tions of his kingdom, and made his name disgraceful through 
all his nation's history. 

Herein he is a warning to us. Whoever puts policy before 
religion, chooses convenience before duty, or makes expedi- 
ency a greater thing than righteousness, has foredoomed his 
career to ultimate failure, and his name to certain shame. 

IDOLATRY. 

One false step necessitates a second. Having adopted his 
policy, the new king must needs devise suitable means for 
carrying it out. An evil aim and end calls for evil devices. 
If the people went to Dan and Bethel to worship, something 
must be there for them to worship. The temple at Jeru- 
salem could not be transported, the Shekinah would not be. 
Jeroboam was forced to provide substitutes. So he built 
sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan, in each of which he set up 
an idol in the form of a calf, richly overlaid with gold. 
Long residence in Egypt had made him familiar with idola- 
trous rites. Perhaps the suggestion came in that way. Or, 
as the dedicatory formula seems to indicate, the hint may 
have been taken from the idolatry into which Israel fell at 
Sinai. 

The results of Aaron's experiment, however, would seem 
sufficient to have deterred any one from imitating it. Com- 
mon-sense should have perceived the advisability of making 
as few changes as need be, and of introducing gradually such 
as were imperative. The religious sense of the worthiest 
classes was sure to be shocked at any radical alterations in 
the established order. But the king, having entered upon a 
wrong road, went rashly on. The great annual festival, the 
Feast of Tabernacles, was moved forward to the correspond- 
ing day of the eighth month, — probably on the ground 
that the harvest whose gathering it celebrated came a little 



20 IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. [First Quarter. 

later in the northern kingdom. The most daring inno- 
vation of all consisted in supplanting the existing corps 
of religious officials by a new levy raised from among the 
common people. 

The priests and Levites residing in the country appear to 
have revolted against the new religion, and to have refused 
to offer sacrifices before the golden calves that Jeroboam had 
set up. In a parallel account (2 Chron. xi.) we are told that 
"the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted 
to him [Rehoboam] out of all their border. For the Levites 
le.'t their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah 
and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons cast them off, 
that they should not execute the priest's office unto the 
Lord : and he appointed him priests for the high places, and 
for the he-goats and for the calves which he had made." 
Rulers who attempt to carry out iniquitous innovations 
against the religious convictions of their best subjects 
are often forced to extremes that at first they did not 
contemplate. 

The king's course made him chief transgressor in a great 
national sin. The bulk of the people submitted to the new 
dispensation and brought their offerings to the high places 
in Bethel and Dan. The quintessence of idolatry is the 
substitution of something else in the place of God. It may 
be a golden calf or a golden dollar. Whatsoever is made to 
stand in God's place in man's life is an idol, and whosoever 
■puts it there is a servant of idols. 

It is argued by some commentators that this was not 
idolatry in the strict sense, but only the worship of 
Jehovah under the form of a calf. And indeed the phrase 
may read, " This is thy God, Israel, that brought thee up 
out of the land of Egypt." Re that as it may, Jehovah had 
expressly forbidden men to worship him in that fashion, 
for the wise reason that worship by the aid of sensuous 



Lesson II] IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. 21 

forms invariably degenerates among the masses into actual 
idolatry. The making of images results in the worship of 
false gods. 

Fifty years later, in the days of Elijah the reformer, we 
find the nation wholly given over to idols. The worship of 
Jehovah had almost entirely ceased. Baal, Astarte, and 
Moloch were the reigning deities. 'T is ever thus. Intelli- 
gent heathen declare that their religion does not inculcate 
the worship of the idol, but of the god by means of the idol. 
Nevertheless the mass of their people bow down simply to 
wood and stone. Catholic prelates contend that images are 
used in their services merely to stimulate the spiritual senses 
by aid of the physical. But thousands in that communion, 
contrary to this fine theory, actually worship the image. 

Idolatry involves also the sin of disobedience. God had 
said, "Thou shalt not." This Jeroboam well knew. He 
ought to have remembered the hot displeasure with which 
in the history of his nation infractions of God's will had been 
punished. What a strange infatuation possesses men who 
suppose that they can please God while doing the very things 
which he has sternly forbidden ! Yet men are guilty of this 
folly all the time. When the life is absorbed in business or 
pleasure, when the greed for gold or the lust for power, the 
chief idolatries of our day, becomes the supreme affection of 
the soul, then is broken the greatest commandment of all, 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
thy neighbor as thyself," and a sin is committed for which no 
amount of ritual observance or professional piety can atone. 

But the crowning iniquity of Jeroboam, for which more 
than for all else he was condemned, was that he used the pub- 
lic power, the divinely bestowed authority of the state, for 
the furtherance of ungodliness. There is a warning here for 
legislators who legalize a nefarious traffic, give respectability 
to lotteries and gambling-dens, or load unjust taxes upon the 



22 IDOLATRY IN ISRAEL. [First Quarter. 

poor and weak, and for rulers who wink at bribery, theft, 
and other wickedness in high places. 

DOOM. 

In his procedure Jeroboam overlooked a universal law. 
Consequences are inevitable. Effects follow their causes. 
Every road has its proper terminus, every seed its peculiar 
harvest. Choose your course, and you will come to the end 
of it. Sow your seed ; you must reap the sort of grain. which 
you have sown. Flesh and corruption, wind and whirlwind, 
spirit and life, obedience and blessing, transgression and ruin : 
these things go in these pairs. The two names in each pair 
are but two names for the selfsame thing. In natural mat- 
ters, in physical science, this principle is everywhere re- 
spected ; in spiritual it is almost universally ignored. Since 
the foundation of the world men have been doing evil that 
good might come, seeking blessedness by the way of the 
transgressor, sowing tares and watching for wheat. 

Jeroboam had set out to make his kingdom secure. With 
curious insanity he had chosen the shortest, surest way to de- 
feat that very design. Trampling on the rights of man and 
defying the commandments of God, he brought upon himself 
and his nation the fearful consequences of his sin. Even 
as he stood by the unholy altar to offer impious sacrifice, 
the feet of the foredooming prophet were drawing nigh. 

So this strong young ruler, who received his commission 
from God and set out with the fairest auguries for a brilliant 
career, made such shipwreck of his opportunity, so preferred 
expediency to righteousness, so turned and turned his people 
to idolatry, that the worst doom possible to man came upon 
him, — the loss of God's favor; and he has ever since been 
remembered, as he must be forever, by the bitter epitaph, 
which is repeated like a refrain through all the later Scrip- 
tures : " Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." 



JLession in. 31anuan? 18. 



GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. 

1 Kings xvii : 1-16. 
By Rev. P. A. NORDELL, New London, Conn. 

nPHE religion of Israel consisted mainly of two elements, — 
J- law and prophecy. Each of these is forever associated 
with one of the most extraordinary characters in sacred his- 
tory. Moses is the representative of that divine law which 
bound Israel in a perpetual covenant to Jehovah's service. 
Elijah is the representative of that spirit of prophecy which 
sought to keep the covenant in force by vivifying and deep- 
ening the national sense of obligation. The one was com- 
missioned to bring God into the consciousness and daily life 
of the people ; the other, to bring the rebellious nation back 
to God. In point of time Elijah, the restorer of the cove- 
nant, stood about midway between Moses its founder and 
Christ its end. Most fittingly, therefore, do these two re- 
appear in the transfigured presence of him who was the End 
of the law, the Fulfilment of prophecy, the real Founder and 
perpetual Upholder of that spiritual kingdom of which Israel 
was only an imperfect and vanishing type. 

I. god's servant and his fearless message. 

To feel the significance of Elijah's message we must under- 
stand, in some measure, the political and religious condition 
of the northern kingdom. 



24 GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. [Fikst Quarter. 

A little over fifty years had elapsed since the death of 
Solomon and the division of the monarchy into the rival 
kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In Israel these years had 
witnessed almost continual usurpations, crimes, and blood- 
shed. Under Ahab's reign peace was restored, internal 
prosperity secured, commerce with the surrounding nations 
promoted, liberal arts encouraged, and the tastes of the court 
and nobles for splendor and luxury gratified to an extent 
hitherto unheard of. But while political and social disaster 
had been averted for a time, the religious degeneracy had 
been continuous and rapid. Jeroboam, in introducing the 
worship of the golden calves, had probably no intention of 
breaking away entirely from the worship of Jehovah, but 
merely desired to strengthen himself on the throne by ter- 
minating for his ten tribes the ancient custom of going up 
to Jerusalem every year to worship. This violation of the 
law against worshipping God by means of images resulted, 
as all departure from God invariably does, in still deeper 
alienation. It prepared the way for the full introduction of 
heathenism under Ornri, and for what seemed to be the total 
extinction of the old religion under Ahab. 

The fatal defect in Ahab's character w r as not wickedness, 
but weakness. A man who wields great power had almost 
better be wicked than weak; a strong-minded sinner, con- 
trolled only by his own indwelling devil, may at times be 
restrained by a sense of responsibility, whereas a weak man 
in power is entered into and possessed by seven devils each 
sevenfold worse than his own. Stripped of his power, Ahab 
might have been a comparatively harmless man ; but in- 
vested with it, and controlled by others, he "did yet more 
to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the 
kings of Israel that were before him." He became a pliant 
tool in the hands of Jezebel, his ambitious and unscrupulous 
Phoenician queen. In her fanatical hatred of the worship of 



Lksson III.] GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. 25 

Jehovah, and fixed determination to exterminate it from the 
land, she stopped at no crime, however black, at no outrage, 
let it be never so high-handed. 

The religious situation was dark and desperate. Jehovah's 
prophets had been hunted and slain, his altars had been 
thrown down. The prophets of Baal were everywhere re- 
ceived with royal favor and sumptuously cared for. Mag- 
nificent temples were built for his images. The deification 
of Lust in the worship of Ashtoreth, the Phoenician Venus, 
spread over the land like a moral pestilence. Every ray 
of true religious light seemed on the point of extinction. 
Events were rapidly precipitating the most momentous crisis 
ever experienced in the history of Israel. It seemed as if the 
last link of the old covenant that bound Israel to Jehovah's 
service was about to be broken. Peace rested upon the land, 
evil flourished unrebuked, and men thought that eternal jus- 
tice was not only blind, but fast asleep. It was an ominous 
peace, like the dead silence before the crash of battle, or the 
momentary lull before the roar of the hurricane. Such peace, 
either for a nation or for an individual, always ends in a ter- 
rible awakening. In this instance it came when the bolt of 
Jehovah's judgment fell as from a cloudless sky; that bolt 
was Elijah. 

Elijah was the prophet of fire. With the suddenness of a 
lightning flash he appears on the pages of history as well as 
before the king of Israel. Just such a man was demanded by 
the times, — a man of bold, determined action, rather than of 
peaceful words. There are times when the ordinary means 
of impressing men seem to have lost their power. Sermons 
the most eloquent, arguments the most logical, pleas the 
most tender, fall on human hearts like rain on rocks. Noth- 
ing less than the most striking manifestations of divine judg- 
ment suffice to arrest men in their headlong descent to ruin. 
So Israel needed now, not preaching, but unanswerable de- 



26 GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. [First Quarter. 

monstrations of Jehovah's omnipotence. They needed to be 
convinced of his infinite superiority to the dead idols for 
whom the people had abandoned their service to the living 
and true God who had made the heavens and the earth. 
Elijah was the instrument that God had prepared for this 
work. 

Of Elijah's early history nothing is known beyond the fact 
that he was a Tishbite from the country east of the Jordan, 
— probably one of a company of Israelites who, moving tem- 
porarily beyond the boundaries of their own tribes, had taken 
up their sojourn in Gilead. Of his preparation for his work 
we know still less. Habituated, apparently, to desert soli- 
tudes, it may be inferred that, like the Baptist, the second 
Elijah, he was a genuine son of the desert, which stamped 
his character with its own simplicity and sternness. His 
long, thick hair — for he was a Nazarite — flowed over his 
broad shoulders like a lion's mane. He had the boldness of 
a lion and the fleetness of an antelope. "With no settled 
habitation, he appeared now here, now there ; and when his 
enemies sought him, disappeared again as mysteriously as 
though the earth had opened beneath his feet. 

Such was the man who, clad in a simple tunic and a 
sheepskin mantle, appeared before the astonished king of 
Israel. Without preamble he delivers his amazing message: 
" As the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand, 
there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to 
my word." Before the king had time to reflect, the apparition 
was gone. 

The message was clear and unmistakable. It required 
neither explanation nor justification. There are innumer- 
able instances where God's judgments are "a great deep" 
and fathomless. The stricken heart in its anguish questions 
whj God's hand is laid so heavily upon it. But in Ahab's 
case there was no mystery. The punishment announced 



Lesson III.] GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. 27 

was the well-known penalty attached to a violation of the 
national covenant with God. If Israel kept the covenant, 
then the Lord promised, " I will give the rain of your land 
in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that thou 
mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And 
I will give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, and thou shalt 
eat and be. full." But if Israel broke the covenant, and 
served other gods, then all these blessings would be re- 
versed. " Thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, 
and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord 
shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from 
heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be de- 
stroyed." It was the very result that Ahab had defiantly 
invited, — a specific penalty for a specific sin. The connec- 
tion between the two may not always be so clear as here ; 
but we may be absolutely certain that penalty of some 
sort answers to sin, even as face answers to face in the 
glass. 

Elijah's words implied far more than they stated. Since 
Baal was worshipped as the god of reproduction and fertility 
in nature, the impending drought was a direct challenge to 
Baal to save his followers from Jehovah's power if he could. 
Over against such " dead idols " Jehovah was fitly character- 
ized as the living God, whose sleepless eyes were upon all his 
works. He was " the God of Israel." The nation belonged 
to him. He had chosen it from among the other nations, 
had set his love upon it, and bound it to himself in a mar- 
riage covenant; as a man binds a wife. As a faithful wife, 
Israel owed to him the purest love and truest service. But 
Israel was a faithless wife, who deserted his holy service 
and shamelessly prostituted herself with the abominations of 
the heathen. This covenant-God was the one whom Elijah 
represented, "before whom he stood," who invested him 
with such amazing power and courage that he was enabled 



28 GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. [First Quarteu 

singled-handed to perform prodigies of resistance to the over- 
whelming errors of his age.- Better be in the minority with 
God than in the majority against him. Only a living faith 
in a li\ing God, a profound consciousness of oneness with his 
will can inspire the loftiest exhibitions of courage. "What man, 
.solitary and alone, can sustain a conflict against the world ? 
Only he who knows that he stands before God, and is not 
answerable to men. Elijah possessed this profound sense of 
oneness with God, for in delivering his message he spoke as 
from himself, — " there shall not be dew nor rain these years, 
but according to my word." It is easy to see how in the 
extraordinary authority claimed by him he contrasted himself 
with the impotent impostors who professed to stand for Baal. 
Baal's prophets were as helpless as himself. Intrenched 
behind royal power, they felt secure in their triumph over 
Jehovah's prophets. But in the presence of Elijah their 
pomp of power proved only a delusion and a snare. It is 
always so with the wicked ; in the day of God's judgments 
they " are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." 

II. GOD'S CARE FOR HIS SERVANT. 

The Lord's care for Elijah is shown in two ways. In the 
first place, he preserves him from personal danger ; and in 
the second place, during the prevalence of the drought he 
miraculously supplies all his personal needs. 

What immediate impression the message had on Ahab's 
mind we have no means of knowing. Possibly he may have 
felt a lingering touch of conscience. His weakness of char- 
acter may have led him to fear the stern and foreboding 
words. But if so, Jezebel, his evil genius, would soon dispel 
his fears and silence the voice of conscience. " AVhat ! has 
one of those impudent curs come out from his hiding-place? 
Has he dared to speak in the name of Israel's dethroned 
God, and really threatened a withholding of rain ? Let not 



Lesson III.] GOD'S CAHE OF ELIJAH. 29 

the king fear ! We shall soon know the emptiness of his 
boast, and the power of my lord Baal, who gives the rain in 
its season, and the corn, the oil, and the wine to those that 
call on him." And so the court and the priests fell to laughing 
immoderately at the vaporings of the mad fanatic ; it was 
the standing joke of the season. Sinners, in their arrogant 
security, .always find rare sport in laughing at God's threats. 

Presently March came, — the time of the early rain ; but 
no cloud dimmed the splendor of the eastern sky. " The rain 
is delayed," they said. " Wait a little ; it will soon be here." 
But the days came and went. The sun smote the doomed 
land with merciless strength. From the cerulean depths the 
stars looked down at night ; but their brilliancy mocked the 
eye that watched for a gathering mist. The slanting rays of 
the morning sun were broken into no rainbow tints by glis- 
tening dew ; and men said, " It is only a natural calamity." 
Their proud security was not disturbed. Wearily the days 
wore by until October, — the season for the latter rain ; but the 
scorched hills only took on a deeper brown, the baked earth 
became harder still. It is difficult for us to comprehend the 
full horrors of an Eastern drought ; it means famine and pes- 
tilence, the extinction of life, universal death. 

The mocking laughter at Jehovah's prophet now died 
away in deep anxiety, or gave way to furious anger. In 
every adjacent land the king's emissaries sought Elijah that, 
by importunity, torture, or death, they might break the fatal 
spell. But in vain ; for the Lord had hidden him — in some 
cavern, it may be- among the steep and rocky defiles of the 
brook Cherith. Here was water. At evening, according to 
God's promise, strange messengers — a flock of ravens — 
came bringing meat and bread. Morning and evening his 
need was supplied by them. Never shall those that put 
their trust in God be put to shame ; but sometimes the 
divine care shows itself in an extraordinary way. 



30 GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. [First Quartek. 

Iii Elijah's withdrawal from the abodes of men there was 
a higher purpose than mere personal safety. In the silence 
and solitude of the desert, with no fellowship but his own 
thoughts, he learned lessons of humble dependence and faith, 
of holy enthusiasm for God, and of inexorable severity toward 
the ungodly. It is a wonderful preparation for hard duty to 
be shut up alone with God. Before entering on the great 
work of his life he needed auother lesson of gentle compas- 
sion and ready helpfulness toward the needy and oppressed. 
The desert could not teach him this. And so it came to pass 
that by and by even the Cherith dried up, and he was forced 
to seek another shelter. 

Then the word of the Lord came again to Elijah, directing 
him to go toward Sidon in Phoenicia, Jezebel's early home. 
Surely none would think of looking for him there ! As at a 
later date saints were found in Caesar's household, so now 
there seemed to be a worshipper of the true God even in this 
centre of that abominable heathenism which passed over into 
Israel and had poisoned its life like a leprosy. The story of 
the prophet's meeting with the woman of Zarephath is full of 
pathos and beauty. She had gone out to gather a few sticks 
with which to prepare the little meal that yet remained in 
the small jar, — not "barrel." The poor, even in prosperous 
times, seldom buy their flour by the barrel, much less so 
when food is at famine prices. Had she not been a wor- 
shipper of Jehovah, and possessed a faith such as was not 
found in Israel, she would scarcely have shared that last 
morsel of food with the weary and hungry man of God. 
But she believed God's promise that the jar of meal should 
not waste, nor the cruse of oil fail, until the day when the 
Lord would send rain upon the earth. Wonderful as were 
her unquestioning faith and prompt obedience, still more 
wonderful was her reward. It included not only a supply 
of meal and oil for herself and all her family, but the resto- 



Lesson III.] GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. 31 

ration of her son to life. Possibly one greater than Elijah 
had this very incident in mind when he said, " He that re- 
ceiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a 
prophet's reward." In this widow's home Elijah learned the 
important lesson that God's sympathy and love are broader 
than the bounds of a single people. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the present tendency of 
criticism is strongly toward a denial of the miraculous, we 
are constrained to accept these events as incontestable facts 
rather than as literary decorations. The reign of law is the 
most magnificent discovery of modern science. It shows 
us that the processes of nature are uniform, that nothing 
is arbitrary, nothing capricious. But natural science is re- 
lated only to physical forces and phenomena. It can never 
prove that above this material world there is not a spiritual 
universe whose forces at rare intervals dip down into the 
natural and produce results that men call miraculous. Mir- 
acles are not interruptions of the natural order, but exhibi- 
tions of other and higher than physical forces. They testify 
to the existence of a God who is not the slave of his own 
laws. 

Still, God prefers to reveal his care through secondary 
causes rather than by direct displays of power. He can in- 
terpose miraculously if he chooses. But we are not entitled 
to expect interference with the orderly processes of nature in 
our behalf. God has not promised this. Yet it is a matter 
of frequent observation that in answer to prayer, or for the 
supply of human needs, results are brought about by purely 
natural means so startling, so exactly corresponding to the 
thing sought, as to be scarcely less amazing than direct 
miracle. No man has ever lived who could stand up and 
from personal experience deny that " the mercy of the Lord 
is from everlasting to everlasting to such as keep his cove- 
nant," or that " he satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the 



32 GOD'S CARE OF ELIJAH. [First Quarter. 

hungry soul with goodness ; " who could say, " I have tried it, 
and have found that the man is not blessed who trusts in 
the Lord. 1 have served him, and it does not pay ; trusted 
him, and met nothing but disappointments." In some way, 
it may be the most unexpected, the Lord will provide. If 
there is need of it, even the ravens become his willing mes- 
sengers. Our Father in heaven never withholds from his 
children their daily # bread. He may not give ailluence and 
luxury, but the meal and the oil will not fail. Drawing 
upon it for all we need does not diminish to-morrow's supply. 
" Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." 

Oh, for the spirit of Elijah in our day, — for a spirit of 
such self-surrender to the Lord, " before whom we stand," 
that we may be his prophets, speaking for him to an idola- 
trous world and to a worldly church ! The Lord's mes- 
sengers too often shrink from delivering his message in its 
stern severity. The world, and the Church too, would rather 
hear of a God who is all love than of one who is a con- 
suming tire toward tlie wicked. Those who fear to deliver 
Elijah's message can never have Elijah's power. Fiery zeal 
and holy enthusiasm are nourished by a close and constant 
walk with God. They are choked in the deadly miasms of 
the world. Blessed is the man who fearlessly does every 
duty that God lays upon him ! Though hunted by enemies 
and exposed to hardships, he shall dwell securely under the 
shadow of the Almighty. 



iLestfon iv. 31anuar^ 25. 



ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS OF 
BAAL. 

1 Kings xoiii: 25-39. 
By Rev. C. J. BALDWIN, Gkanville, Ohio. 

THE contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal on 
Mount Carmel is one of the most dramatic scenes in 
human history. Eomance may be challenged to rival that 
weird tragedy, enacted on a lofty mountain summit, with the 
multitudes of Israel for spectators, and the representatives of 
hostile religions for actors. The strange contrasts, the intense 
competition, the failure and the victory, with the terrible pun- 
ishment crowning all, compose a picture of epic sublimity. 

But the symbolism of the narrative is even more impressive ; 
for it portrays many features of the contest perpetually ra- 
ging between Truth and Error, Good and Evil, in this world. 

1. We are reminded of the great disparity between these 
opposing forces. Now, as then, Truth is in the minority. It 
was one man against four hundred and fifty. And Elijah 
was not only alone, he was obscure and unfavored of earth, 
while his opponents were both numerous and also the officials 
of a state religion. The prophet of God was, moreover, an 
outlaw under the royal ban, while the priests of Baal were 
the favorites of king and people. 

Thus Right was at an enormous disadvantage on Mount 
Carmel. Humanly speaking, it was a one-sided conflict, where 
all the probabilities were in favor of the enemies of Good. 



34 ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. [First Quarter. 

But so it is always. The world has never seen a popular 
majority for the truth. Only eight souls were saved in the 
ark ; Abraham was alone in his faith ; Israel was but a hand- 
ful ; and the " peculiar peoples " in every age have been " a 
remnant" Even the Son of God did not restore the equi- 
librium. The Preformation effected but a partial equalization. 
The present age of missions, with all its conquests, finds the 
Church outnumbered in every region by its foes. Not only 
so, but in respect to earthly rank, power, prestige, the advan- 
tage has always been on the side of error. If at intervals 
the tide seems to turn, as when David, Solomon, Constantine, 
aive to religious truth political pre-eminence, such episodes 
are transient, and soon the old disproportion returns. 
" Truth forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne," 

abides as the rule obtaining in every age for the fortunes of 
the kingdom of heaven on earth. 

2. This disparity was intensified and emphasized by di- 
vine direction. Elijah was commanded to give to his oppo- 
nents precedence at every point. The criterion which he must 
submit for the testing of the rival religions was " the god that 
answereth by fire." That was a concession to the claims 
of Baal, who was called the " sun-god," with whom fire was 
a native element. The test proposed was, therefore, the 
most favorable one for his enemies that Elijah could have 
presented. Moreover, the pagans were to have their oppor- 
tunity first, take all the time they wanted, and resort to any 
means for the securing of their victory. On the other hand, 
Elijah's task was rendered as difficult as possible. He must 
stand by and see his rivals consume the entire day. When 
his turn comes, at nightfall, he must cause his sacrifice to be 
flooded with water, and this to be done three times, until altar 
and trench are streaming and filled with the fluid. Then, 
when the sun has disappeared, and no fire remains in the sky, 



Lesson IV.] ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. 35 

he is simply to offer one brief prayer in order to bring down 
the lightning on his drenched offerings. 

This magnifying of evil and minimizing of the resources 
of good has marked the divine policy from the first. God 
has seemed to give to sin every advantage that it could ask 
for, and to keep his own cause at a corresponding inferiority. 
What a surprising difference, according to earthly standards, 
between Jesus and his enemies ! Not only was he alone, 
unfavored and unhelped, but they were supported by all the 
power of the Jewish church, the Gentile government, and 
even the infernal world. Sin was allowed to parade and 
employ its uttermost resources, while holiness seemed to be 
proportionately depressed in the person of Him who was born 
in a manger and reared at Nazareth, who became the Friend 
of publicans and sinners, was betrayed by his own followers, 
and condemned to the accursed death. 

Similar fortunes have attended the people of God to this 
day. Not only have they been left to engage in a one-sided 
conflict where the numerical odds were always against them, 
but peculiar aggravations of this disparity have been com- 
mon. It is noticeable that art has rendered to the cause of 
Error its noblest contributions, as in the service to the church 
of Rome of classic and Gothic architecture, painting, and 
sculpture. Philosophy and science have often come to the 
aid of the most pronounced infidelity. On which side of the 
great battle do we find the graces and grandeurs of this world 
in the wealth, luxury, and culture of the day ? 

The student of history has frequent occasion to remark, 
contrasted with these advantages, the strange disabilities 
under which true religion labors. The reformer is often a 
rash and erratic man, impeding his work by his own faults. 
The excesses of enthusiasts, the blemishes of martyr-lives, 
the grim asceticism of the Covenanters, the stern rigors of 
the Pilgrims, the irregularities of evangelists, the violence 



36 ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. [First Quarter. 

of radicals, — are features of Christian progress which ex- 
plain many of the defeats which Christians suffer. 

The Church is still burdened with such unnecessary draw- 
backs. How often are we tempted to take literally the 
words which speak of the " foolishness of preaching," and 
to wonder -why God hath chosen such needlessly foolish, 
weak, and base things of this world to serve him ! 

Sin appears to suffer from few such impediments. Its 
course is open and clear. Its servants are in their native 
element, well trained, and effectively used. The world lieth 
in the Wicked One. Baal is invoked while the sun is high 
in the sky. " This is your hour," is the divine permission 
to Satan. So Baal's cause flourishes, while Elijah must 
stand and wait, to find, when his turn comes at last, that 
it is a drenched altar under a sunless sky on which he must 
call down fire. 

3. This disparity between the two contestants was empha- 
sized by Jehovah for the purpose of suitably displaying his 
own superiority to both of them. 

He gave to Baal every advantage and reduced his own 
resources to a minimum, in order to show that Truth at 
its lowest is stronger than Error at its highest. The re- 
sult justified this plan ; for the people were all the more 
impressed by the final victory of Elijah, because of the 
tremendous inequality of the conflict at the beginning. 

This gives us a clew to that policy of the divine gov- 
ernment which has been referred to. God has allowed 
sin to prosper in this world, and has permitted his own 
religion to take an inferior place, for the purpose of thus 
furnishing an arena for the exhibition of the divine self- 
assertion. How are the spiritual lessons of history intensi- 
fied by the fact that the truth is always in the minority ! 
As we see Moses and Aaron confronting Pharaoh, the lone- 
liness of Gideon and Samson, and the terrible isolation of 



Lesson IV.] ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. 37 

the three Hebrews before the fiery furnace, do we not find 
that very contrast magnifying the divine help that saved 
them ? 

We understand, then, why Christianity has never been 
allowed to compete on equal terms with the dominant faiths 
of the world. God does not intend that his religion shall 
obscure Himself. He knows how readily the eye of man 
is caught and held by visible forms, and that spiritual truth 
is always endangered by material associations. Accordingly 
the earthly medium through which his grace shines must 
be as thin and plain as safety will permit. This was the 
reason why Jesus the Christ asked and received so little 
from the world. He owed nothing to its favor or its help. 
The Son of Mary walked the paths of humility and self- 
sacrifice alone. His miracles were few, and bare of theatri- 
cal effect. To most of its spectators, his death had no 
sacrificial significance- And before the new dispensation 
was fairly opened at Pentecost, he left the earth, to be seen 
of men no more. What a meagre manifestation of that 
Messiah for whom the world was waiting ! 

But as we now see, all that humiliation was the most 
effective background that could have been provided for the 
display of the spiritual kingdom of God. The lowly, ob- 
scure, and painful life of the Saviour was the best possible 
recommendation of those graces of love, purity, meekness, 
consecration, which he insisted upon as of chief worth. All 
men may now recognize that Christianity was not born of 
earthly conditions, and cannot be dependent on human help. 
It must be from Heaven, for it owes nothing to this world. 

4. The triumphs of grace thus obtained are also magni- 
fied by the divine concessions to the enemy. 

It was yielding much to Baal when the ordeal of fire was 
proposed, for that meant to meet the sun-god on his own 
field and with his own weapons. Other tests might have 



38 ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. [First Quarter. 

been chosen which would have been more favorable to 
Elijah. But no ; he must go into the enemy's territory 
and challenge him in his very citadel. And this to show 
that Jehovah can beat sin at its own game. He will come 
down to the terms of evil, grant it every advantage, and 
then surpass and extinguish it just where it is strongest. 

This is what he is doing all the time. " The god that 
answereth by fire, let him be God.'" He compels evil to 
acknowledge him through its own oracles, and honor him 
from its own shrine. 

Do the Egyptians worship the river Nile ? Lo, the rod of 
Moses turns those sacred waters into blood. Are they the 
most cleanly of peoples, making a religion of physical 
purity ? They are stricken with vermin by the word of 
the Lord. Do they idolize the goat, the ram, and the bull ? 
The cattle of their fields must perish before the divine 
scourge. Thus Pharaoh is taught that even within the 
range of his own religion the God of the Hebrews can 
find means to overthrow him. 

Similar transformations mark all the great conquests of 
Christianity. Jewish legalism receives its death blow from 
one of its own disciples, the converted Saul. Rome's great- 
est enemy is found in Luther, one of its children. Thus 
Jehovah conquers the fire-god with fire. 

He meets scientific scepticism with the scientific faith of 
Miller, Hitchcock, and Drummond. He compels the art 
of sensuous Italy to minister to biblical truth in the Madon- 
nas and Nativities. He transforms the pagan temple into 
the Christian church, and puts the Gothic spire to spiritual 
uses. This process of overruling and utilizing grace is 
spreading through all the ranges of human enterprise. 
Money-making and pleasure-seeking are being harnessed to 
religious purposes. Political economy is now beginning to 
teach the individualism and communism of the New Tes- 



Lesson IV.] ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. 39 

tament. The Gospel is finding its best service to day in the 
workshop, the studio, the office, and in Parliament. 

Why not ? This is God's world, not Baal's. Jehovah is 
the true sun-god, and he can answer by fire as well as 
by any other natural agency, for all things are his. Even 
siu and death are concentric to the orbit of his purposes, 
and at last will be found tributary to his glory. 

5. These exhibitions of divine self-assertion furnish a 
severe but useful test of human character. The priests of 
Baal were not the only ones whose faith and patience were 
taxed on Mount Carmel. It must have cost Elijah not a 
little to find himself placed for an entire day at so great a 
disadvantage. Nothing less than intense consecration and 
courage could have endured such a trial. He proved to 
be . equal to the emergency ; but the sarcastic outbursts 
with which he taunted his rivals on their failure may 
indicate the agitation of his own pent-up spirit. 

This experience also was typical. It represents the lot 
of God's people in all ages. The very greatness of the 
divine interpositions in their behalf has imposed on them 
burdens of self-denial and self-effacement. It is always 
agreeable to be self-assertive and reliant. No one enjoys 
being put into inferior and obscure places. Especially do 
men feel this when summoned to work and conflict. Then 
the laborer is worthy of his hire, we think, and the warrior 
is entitled at least to recognition. But to do and endure 
without publicity or praise, is hard. Yet just that is what 
Jehovah requires of his people in all generations. They 
must be second, that he may be first; they weak, in order 
that he may be glorified ; they must die, that his cause 
may live. Herein is the patience of the saints, — that 
Moses have nothing but a rod with which to confront 
Pharaoh, and David only a sling, and Peter neither silver 
nor gold. It is a trial, this poverty of their own as com- 



40 ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. [First Quarter. 

pared with their enemies' advantages, that is always mani- 
fest in the experience of the godly. "Wilt thou not at 
this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?" is the very natural 
cry that has been wrung from how many suffering souls ! 
To stand by and see the wicked outnumber the good, out- 
shine and outwork them ; to note the glaring contrasts 
between the successes of Wrong and the many failures of 
Right ; to see, as we see to-day, after all the ages of Chris- 
tian progress, that the priests of Baal are still in the ma- 
jority, and that Elijah often stands alone beside his wet 
altar under the fireless sky, — here is the ground of many 
a doubt and fear and weary pain in believers' hearts Nor 
is this altogether unreasonable ; for even the glorified on 
high are suffering likewise, as the souls of martyrs under 
the altar are still crying with a loud voice, "How long, 
Lord, how long ? " 

But such experiences reveal to us the reason for this 
dispensation, in that it imposes a discipline which con- 
tributes to the perfect education of the saints. The graces 
of faith, humility, courage, patience, and self-sacrifice could 
not be developed so well under any other regimen. There- 
fore God hath chosen the foolish things of this world, and the 
weak and base and despised, to confound the wise and mighty, 
that no flesh should glory in his presence. " According as it 
is written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord." 

6. The trials of God's people are sure to result in their 
triumph, as well as his glory. Indeed the latter includes 
the former. Whatever glorifies the Master, honors the ser- 
vant also. And just as surely as he requires of his fol- 
lowers self-sacrifice in the battle, does he reward them with 
an eminent share in the victory. It is Elijah who reaps 
the harvest at Carmel ; it is Samson who receives the 
submission of the Philistines ; it is David who wears the 
name of Goliath on his crest. 



Lesson IV.] ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. 41 

Thus God gives to his people ample recompense for all 
that he requires of them ; yea, even in this life they re- 
ceive a hundred fold. "Ye are they who have continued 
with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a 
kingdom." 

Even so, Lord Jesus ! Thou art a good paymaster, as 
thy servants always discover at the close of the day. No 
arrears of wage, no shortage of accounts with thee. The 
heavier the toil, the greater and the surer thy reward. 

Oh that now, in the time of weariness and pain, when the 
soul stands, perhaps alone, before its enemies and sees them 
numerous and mighty, this prospect might open to the long- 
ing sight ! When in the midst of unanswered prayers, un- 
accomplished purposes and broken plans and hopes, the 
latter-day prophet waits for the revelation that does not 
come, let the thought of others' patience and its reward 
reassure him. For as certainly as God must triumph at 
last, will all who serve him share his victory. 

This study of the ancient narrative may help us to un- 
derstand some of the methods of divine providence toward 
Christians now. When illness, poverty, persecution, befall 
them and reduce them to the lowest depth of human dis- 
tress, let them not construe such dealings as mere depriva- 
tions. They may be precisely the reverse. It is in this 
way that Elijah is sometimes led to Carmel. The soul is 
torn away from all other help, and stripped bare of every 
other dependency, in order to force it back upon simple, 
sole trust in God. There it finds all-sufficient power and 
courage. Not until the thorn in the flesh had reduced 
him to despair did the Apostle reach the climax of hope: 
" When I am weak, then am I strong." Let us not despise 
the chastening of the Lord, but rejoice in this pathway to 
his glory. 



42 ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS. [First Quarter. 

Nor should any one be afraid of being in the minority. 
That is a familiar place for heroes. There the best work 
of the world has been done. Whittier has advised young 
men to attach themselves to some unpopular cause, for he 
knows that in such service the best training for the moral 
nature can be secured. Not that there is any necessary 
virtue in place with the minority. The few may be wrong 
as easily as the many. Mere singularity is no proof of rec- 
titude. It is sometimes the evidence of egotism or natural 
contentiousness. To stand aloof and alone may be the result 
of pride. 

The real question is, Where is God ? " One with God is 
a majority." On what side of a given issue does his will 
stand ? As matters go in this world, he is almost always 
with the few and against the many. And there should we 
be, not because isolation itself is meritorious, but because, 
siding with him, we are certain to be at once right and 
victorious. 



iUfifefon v. iFebruarp 1. 



ELIJAH AT HOKEB. 

1 Kings xix: 1-18. 

By Rev. A. G. UPHAM, Montreal, Canada. 

\ CTION is followed by reaction. A season of intense 
■^~*- effort, anxiety, or excitement is usually succeeded by 
one of corresponding languor and weakness, in which the 
soul, unless fortified against it, falls an easy prey to tempta- 
tion. So was it with Elijah after his conflict on Mount 
Carmel. That battle had taxed every power of his being. 
Soul and body alike had been strained by it to their utmost ; 
and it is no wonder that when all was done a reaction came. 
This is the key to his conduct in the scene before us. His 
sudden flight, his deep despondency, his unworthy com- 
plaints, are all due primarily to this one cause. We have 
here, not a man who has suddenly lost his faith and turned 
coward, but a brave saint and prophet who is suffering recoil 
from intense effort long sustained. 

We need not blame him for flight from Jezebel. He had 
not been commanded to stay, and it is difficult to see what 
he could have gained by staying. At other times he had had 
word from the Lord to strengthen him when he faced dan- 
ger ; now, apparently, God was silent, and what was left for 
him but to fall back upon the natural instinct of self-preser- 
vation and flee for his life ? Jesus Christ commanded his 
followers when "persecuted in one city to flee into an- 
other." He would not have them expose themselves rashly 



44 ELIJAH AT HOREB. [First Quarter. 

or fruitlessly in his cause. There are times when discretion 
is the better part of valor. 

So far as Elijah's conduct on this occasion was blame- 
worthy, the fault lay in his giving way to despondency after 
having reached a place of safety. Even this was due to the 
weariness from which he suffered ; and God's treatment of 
him in the wilderness shows that he was a patient need- 
ing medicine more than a culprit needing rebuke. Let us 
consider, — 

First, the causes of Elijah's despondency ; secondly, God's 
remedy for this. 

1. Prominent among the causes was physical exhaustion. 
The day on Carmel had subjected him to a heavy nervous 
strain. No work saps the body's vitality like that which 
draws upon the emotions. Then followed his wrestling in 
prayer for the rain. Agonizing prayer like his always deeply 
affects the body. Lastly came his long race before Ahab's 
chariot from Carmel to Jezreel, and his flight to the extreme 
south of the kingdom, and thence a day's journey into the 
wilderness, — a succession of trying experiences and efforts, 
all without opportunity for food or rest. No wonder that he 
was exhausted, and fell into much despair! No wonder that 
he thought his life a failure, and asked that he might die ! 
It is hard for a man in such a physical condition to see any- 
thing in its right light. 

2. Another cause of his despondency was enforced inac- 
tivity. On Carmel all had been action; in the wilderness 
there was nothing to do. The moment of exertion had 
passed, the time for reflection had come, — to how many an 
active soul a time of peril ! So long as chance for action, 
endeavor, achievement remains, one even weaker than Elijah 
may endure and do wonders ! The mind will control the 
body, and compel it to almost superhuman efforts. AVhile 
her care is of avail, the mother nurses her sick child with 



Lesson V.] ELIJAH AT HOREB. 45 

unremitting devotion, and does not know that she is tired. 
But when all is over, and nothing remains but the memory 
of a sweet life gone from earth forever, reaction comes ; na- 
ture asserts itself, her physical power succumbs, and her 
mind, sympathizing with it in that mysterious but real way 
so well known to us all, tends to sink into despair. Noth- 
ing is more perilous to intense souls after great effort than 
enforced inactivity. 

3. Another cause of Elijah's despondency was loneliness. 
Fleeing from Jezebel, 'he had taken his servant with him as 
far as Beersheba in Judah ; but even here, although beyond 
the kingdom of Ahab, he did not feel safe. The son of the 
good king Jehoshaphat had married Jezebel's daughter, and 
Elijah dared not remain in a country where Ahab might 
possibly have influence. He therefore left his servant be- 
hind, and pushed still farther south. 

Little, doubtless, could human society have helped him 
here. Elijah had always been a lonely man, dwelling by 
himself, seeking and enjoying none of the blessings of social 
intercourse. Such a habit necessarily cuts one off from 
much human sympathy. The man who. adopts it surrounds 
himself with barriers. His fellows, even if they wish, can- 
not draw near to him with succor in his hour of need. In 
Elijah's case a monastic life was perhaps necessary. It was, 
at any rate, suited to his work. It may have been at this 
time quite in accord with his feelings to be alone. Still, had 
some wise and trusty friend been by him to cheer, to reason 
with him, enabling him to see his past work aright, or even 
to provide for his physical necessities, his despondency could 
not have been so extreme. " Two are better than one ; be- 
cause they have a good reward for their labor. For if they 
fall, the one will lift up his fellow ; but woe to him that is 
alone when he falleth." There in the silent wilderness, after 
his long march, as he sat down under the tall broom-tree 



46 ELIJAH AT HOREB. [First Quarter. 

midway between Palestine and Egypt, the tried prophet 
would have derived some help from the presence of his 
servant — of any man. 

However, the deepest cause of Elijah's loneliness was not 
distance from his kind ; it was religious. At that moment 
he was, as he thought, the only prophet of Jehovah remaining 
on earth. Either he had forgotten what the faithful Obadiah 
had lately told him of the one hundred prophets successfully 
hidden during a previous persecution, or else he supposed 
them dead, — numbered with the other faithful whom Jeze- 
bel's devilish zeal had taken off Here was desolation indeed ! 
In this awful moment he for the first time in his life felt it 
terrible to be alone. He groaned, " I, even I only am left ; 
and they seek my life to take it away." 

Deprived of all human companionship, and apparently left 
to fight the battle of the true religion single-handed, Elijah was 
thrown back upon the God who never leaves nor forsakes his 
servants, and whose presence realized will more than supply 
the lack of earthly friendships. That divine presence was 
graciously and wondrously vouchsafed him. 

4. But the chief cause of Elijah's despondency now was 
disappointment. Doubtless he thought the triumph on Car- 
mel the crowning effort of his life. He had sought and 
hoped then and there to bring his work to a climax, to ac- 
complish his mission. At first he thought that he had suc- 
ceeded. When the fire descended, the people cried, " Jehovah, 
he is the God ! Jehovah, he is the God ! " At his word they 
had destroyed the prophets of Baal in Ahab's own presence, 
who was too weak or too far paralyzed to resist. The rain, 
too, had come at Elijah's word, even as he had foretold. 
" Surely," he thought, " this will suffice ! Ahab will be con- 
vinced, and will use his royal authority for the restoration of 
our ancestral faith." 

But when Jezebel's threat of death was delivered to him, 



Lesson V.] ELIJAH AT HOREB. 47 

and Ahab did not interfere, and not one of those who had 
shouted for Jehovah on Carmel lifted up hand or voice for 
him, he saw his mistake. Jezebel still reigned, evil remained 
triumphant, Jehovah's cause seemed as far from victory as 
ever, and his heroic deed, yea, his whole life-work, a failure. 
He wailed in despair, " It is enough ; now, Lord, take away 
my life, for I am not better than my fathers ! " Possibly he 
expected too much from the Carmel victory. Perhaps he 
had an exaggerated idea of himself and his ministry. It was 
certainly very natural for his soul, when he thought of all 
he had done as in vain, to be cast down within him. 

So much for the causes of Elijah's despondency. Now 
let us see how the Almighty dealt with his downcast and 
despairing servant. 

1. He began where the beginning was needed, — by supply- 
ing Elijah's physical necessities. He gave his beloved sleep ; 
and when he awoke him it was with an angel's gentle touch, 
and a word to "arise and eat." As he had been fed by 
ravens at Cherith and by a widow at Zarephath, so now he 
" did eat angels' food." Again he slept, and awoke, and ate ; 
and " he went in the strength of that meat forty days and 
forty nights." Behold the wisdom and the goodness of God ! 
He comes to revive the soul of his servant, and he begins by 
reviving his body. He knows that he cannot teach him in 
his present physical condition, therefore he prepares him for 
spiritual enlightenment by renewing his natural strength. 
Jesus Christ often reached the soul through the body, and 
healed the body for the sake of the soul. There is room and 
call for medical missions. Some spiritual disorders can be 
cured only when the body is relieved. If certain spiritual 
dyspeptics could get rid of their physical ailments, they 
would be far happier and more useful Christians. Not in- 
frequently do desponding souls come to their pastor for relief 
when they would do better first to consult their physician. 



48 ELIJAH AT HOREB. [First Quarter. 

2. The next thing God did for Elijah was to help him to 
a just estimate of his work. To this end he brought him 
to a fitting place for divine instruction, to a place where he 
had formerly made known his will, — to Horeb, " the mount 
of God." Sceptics may sneer at the idea that it required 
forty days for Elijah to go from Beersheba to Horeb. Let 
them sneer ; it shows how little they have entered into the 
spirit of this event. It was not the straightforward jour- 
ney of a man who knew where he was going and why, but 
rather the wandering about of one in sore spiritual conflict, 
in bewilderment as to the meaning of his present situation. 

But when at last he reached Horeb, light came. As he lay 
in one of the caves of that lonely mount, " the word of the 
Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou 
here, Elijah ? " Why need we take this as a question of 
rebuke ? It seems rather like the Saviour's questions to 
those whom he would heal, — a gentle invitation to Elijah 
to unburden himself, to open his mind. " What doest 
thou here, Elijah ? Under what hard necessity dost thou 
seek this distant spot ? Why hast thou come to this holy 
place ? " And when Elijah's mournful, honest answer was 
given, telling of his own faithfulness and of Israel's folly and 
sin, then came the divine instruction through the wind, the 
earthquake, the fire, and " the voice of gentle stillness." 

Let others understand this event as they will, we are con- 
tent to regard it as a divine object-lesson in which God sym- 
bolically set forth the true nature and value of Elijah's work, 
and showed him what yet remained to be done. His life 
had been like the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. He 
had been the prophet of judgment and wrath, and had done 
a necessary work in preparing the way for the restoration of 
Jehovah's worship in Israel. But as God was not in the 
wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in the " still, small 
voice," so Elijah was taught that God's highest manifestation 



V.] ELIJAH AT HOKEB. 49 

of himself is not in judgment, but in mercy. Judgment is 
"his strange work," and " mercy rejoiceth against judgment." 
Elijah had destroyed the prophets of Baal, as was necessary 
to the uprooting of idolatry in Israel, even as John the Bap- 
tist, his great counterpart, should afterward "lay the axe 
unto the root of the tree" in his preaching of repentance. 
But as John's work, although necessary to prepare the way 
for the Christ, resulted in no kingdom, so Elijah's stern 
pioneer work could not build up Israel in righteousness. 
Only God's voice in the soul, constraining to loving obe- 
dience, could do that ; and another must come, of a different 
mould from Elijah, before that voice could be heard. 

3. God further comforted Elijah by sending him back to 
complete his work by seeking out and consecrating the one 
who was to take his place. " Go ; return on thy way." He 
gave him something to do. He lifted him out of himself by 
sending him forth on a new commission. To one in Elijah's 
state of mind, work is often the best medicine. Many 
afflicted ones have found relief only by taking up the neces- 
sary duties of life which had been remitted, or by giving 
themselves to some new and worthy work. " Go, return on 
thy way to the wilderness of Damascus : and when thou 
comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria : and Jehu the 
son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel : and 
Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou 
anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to 
pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu 
slay: and him that escapeth the sword of Jehu shall Elisha 
slay." We need not puzzle ourselves unduly over Elijah's 
fulfilment of this commission. So far as the record goes, he 
did not literally anoint any one of these men. Hazael was 
informed by Elisha that he should be king over Syria. Jehu 
was anointed by one of the sons of the prophets. Elisha 
was called to the prophetic office by Elijah. Perhaps we 



50 ELIJAH AT HOREB [First Quarter. 

must fall back here on the principle that what one does 
through another he does by himself. Elisha's peaceful min- 
istry warns us against taking this prophecy of violence too 
literally. Enough that each of these did the work appointed 
to him. Israel still needed chastisement, and Hazael and 
Jehu became the ministers of God to perform this. But as 
it was in the' "still small voice" that God specially spake to 
Elijah, so Elisha with " the sword of his mouth " slew more 
than Hazael and Jehu together, and under God became 
Israels savior. 

So Elijah might even now be comforted. He had not done 
what he hoped to do. But God lived, and God was even 
now preparing instruments to carry on his work in the way 
he saw best. Elijah had no right to be disappointed. The 
best part of God's work for Israel was yet to come, and Elijah 
had been employed to prepare the way for this. It had 
been comparatively easy to get the people to cry out for 
Jehovah on Carmel ; but that cry meant really very little. 
It is easy enough to win men to a church or a creed, very 
hard to win them to righteousness. But God means to win 
men to righteousness, and •" he shall not fail nor be discour- 
aged till he have set judgment in the earth." Let any ser- 
vant of his count himself happy to have any share in such 
a work. In the great harvest day, Elijah and Elisha will 
" rejoice together." 

4. Finally, God comforted Elijah with an assurance of the 
ultimate triumph of his cause. "Yet will I leave me seven 
thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed to 
Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." Elijah 
was not so much alone as he had thought. Even now there 
were those in Israel who were secretly serving Jehovah ; and 
there always would be. Ear better for Elijah had it been if 
these had come out boldly, and ranged themselves with him 
openly on Jehovah's side. It might have saved him from 



Lesson V.] ELIJAH AT HOREB. 51 

his despondency had he known that there were so many in 
Israel who sympathized with him. Many faint-hearted pas- 
tors and Sunday-school teachers would be greatly helped by 
an occasional acknowledgment of good received from their 
effort's. God knew these seven thousand, and he would have 
Elijah know of them. His life had not been in vain. God's 
word had not " returned unto him void." It never will. In 
the darkest times of God's cause on earth there will always 
be "a remnant according to the election of grace." The 
number of his servants may be small compared with all the 
people on earth, but there will always be a " holy remnant," 
— the seed of a purified and triumphant Church in the future. 
There will always be Christians on earth ; they are " the salt 
of the earth," " the light of the world." Against the Church, 
which is Christ's body, " the gates of hell shall not prevail." 

Times of reaction come to us all ; they are in the order of 
nature, and we must expect them. How shall we bear them ? 
Does not God's gracious dealing with Elijah suggest an an- 
swer ? He would not have us fall into such despondency as 
overcame Elijah ; and his treatment of Elijah when fallen 
shows how he would help us to stand. It may be through 
rest or medicine ; it may be through the counsels of a wise 
and trusty friend ; it may be through prayer and the study 
of his word ; it may be through wise and benign work. 
" Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye 
may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done 
all, to stand." 



Wesson VI. jfcbruari? 8. 



NABOTHS VINEYARD AND AHAB'S 
COVETOUSNESS. 

1 Kings xxi: 1-16. 
By Rev. GEOEGE E. MERRILL, Newton, Mass. 

THE visitor to Potsdam in Prussia, from the terrace of 
the palace of Sans-Souci sees near at hand a gigantic 
windmill, the most conspicuous object in the landscape. 
He wonders that the bold miller should have dared to 
build so near. But on inquiry he learns that the mill was 
there before the palace. In it several generations of the 
same family had ground their grist and gathered their 
wealth ere the attention of the Prussian kings was directed 
to the town as a place of residence. When palace after 
palace arose, and the king came to see, behold ! here was 
this ugly windmill beating the air almost on the very border 
of his splendid gardens. Then Frederic the Great did what 
Ahab did in this Bible-story. He tried to buy the mill. 
And the miller answered almost exactly as Naboth answered. 
The king raised his offer again and again, and ended by get- 
ting angry. The miller met the royal threats by an appeal 
to the court judges in Berlin. The judges supported him 
against the king ; the mill went on grinding its corn ; and 
to this day its great fans are whirled by every passing 
breeze. 

The whole nation has come to regard the mill at Potsdam 
as a symbol of the peace and prosperity of the poor under 



Lesson VI.] NxVBOTH'S VINEYARD. 53 

Prussian institutions. It has recently come into the posses- 
sion of the royal family, but only with the proud consent, 
at last, of the descendants of the original owners. The 
world has got ahead. So far as concerns men who bear 
public rule and are subjected to the judgment of society, 
Ahabs must now be sought in darkest Africa or in equally be- 
nighted regions. Would that the spirit of Ahab were equally 
remote from all of us in our private lives and characters ! 
Many of us, perhaps all, are too covetous, grasping, childish, 
weak in yielding to sin, even as was Israel's king. 

1. We note, first, the course of temptation. It may seem 
to the casual reader that there was nothing wrong in Ahab's 
desire, or in the way in which he sought to gain it. So far 
as its terms were concerned, he proposed a strictly honor- 
able bargain. The offer was even generous. Naboth might 
choose a better vineyard, or have cash. No hardship was 
involved except in respect to Naboth's principles and senti- 
ments. But it was just here that the bargain failed, as it 
deserved to. That Naboth merely loved the place would 
have been enough. Objects of affection are often beyond 
price. He did not want either the money or a better 
vineyard. The reason for his declining the bargain was 
deeper. 

Such a sale was an offence against the religious and statute 
law of Israel. It was carefully prescribed that inherited land 
should remain in the tribe where it was first owned. On 
this account a daughter to whom an inheritance fell was for- 
bidden to marry outside her tribe. Her land must not pass 
to another tribe even by marriage. Within the same tribal 
limits the sale of real property was checked by many provi- 
sions. The theory was that the land all belonged to God, and 
that he had parcelled it out as he wished it to remain. 

An owner might part with the use of his land for a time, 
even till the fiftieth or jubilee year : he might charge a high 



54 NABOTH'S VIXEYARD. [First Quarter. 

price if the sale were made immediately after a jubilee, be- 
cause then there would be many crops before the law would 
restore the land ; but if the sale were made near the close 
of the half-century, the price must be proportionately low, 
for the use of the land would be short. In any case what 
could be sold was the use only ; the land itself could not 
be alienated. You will find the statute in Leviticus xxv. 
and in the last chapter of Numbers. It is not wholly un- 
like the theory of land-tenure advocated in our day by Mr. 
Henry George. 

Now the king must have known this law ; it is a stretch 
of charity to suppose that he did not. His proposal, there- 
fore, showed a thorough lack of principle, a wicked con- 
tempt for the Mosaic Code. When the offer was refused 
by Naboth, Ahab knew that his subject was in the right. 
He therefore dropped the matter, and went home and moped 
like a fool. He went to bed ; he refused to eat. Then came 
his stronger wife. He was pitiably weak, — a mere child, 
a puppet in her hands. 

Jezebel came of an unscrupulous stock. Her father, king 
of Zidon, had gained the throne by murdering his predeces- 
sor, Phales, who had himself risen to power by slaying his 
predecessor. The generation following Jezebel produced 
Pygmalion, who killed his brother-in-law, Sichasus, the hus- 
band of Dido, of whom Virgil speaks in the first book of 
the iEneid. We read the whole bloody story there, and in 
Josephus Against Apion, i. 18. 

Jezebel was virtually ruler of the realm. She said, "Dost 
thou now govern the kingdom of Israel ? . . . I will give 
thee the vineyard of Naboth." So Lady Macbeth drives her 
husband on to the murder of Duncan. She mocks his halt- 
ing courage ; she provides suggestion and plan ; she does all 
except strike the murderous blow. She says to him at 
first, — 



Lesson VI.] NABOTH'S VINEYARD. 55 

" He that 's coming 
Must be provided for ; and you shall put 
This night's great business into my despatch." 

" If we should fail," objects Macbeth. 

" We fail ! 
But screw your courage to the sticking place, 
And we '11 not fail," 

she answers. And after it is done, and he refuses to return 
to put the evidence of guilt upon the sleeping and drugged 
servants, she exclaims, — 

" Infirm of purpose ! 
Give me the daggers." 

Ahab is weaker than Macbeth, though not so wicked ; but 
Jezebel and Lady Macbeth are not far apart. When woman 
goes into crime, she often plunges to the extreme quicker 
than man. Jezebel said, " I will give thee Naboth s vine- 
yard." She laid her plot, and with every step of it, as Ahab 
did not spring to arrest her in it, Jezebel was bringing upon 
him more and more completely that curse which had begun 
to fall when he sought her in marriage. The first step in sin, 
little as it may impress us, is prophetic of all that follows. 

The queen issued the warrant in Ahab's name and sealed 
it with his seal. A solemn assembly was called. . By false 
witnesses, men of Belial, — that is, worthless fellows, — 
Naboth was accused of blasphemy and sedition. He was 
judged guilty and stoned to death, and his sons with him. 
No one being left to inherit, the estates, as the property of 
an executed criminal, passed to the Crown. 

Ahab had remained passive in the whole affair ; but when 
the queen said to him, " Arise, take possession ; for Naboth 
is not alive, but dead," he with childish eagerness ordered 
his chariot and rode to the place. What cared he how 
the new estate had been got? His desire was gained; he 
had the vineyard. Yes, and much more, — he had won for 



56 NABOTH'S VINEYARD. [First Quarter. 

himself a completed sin, a burden of guilt, a foreboding of 
conscience, a swift-coming doom. 

There are few events in a man's life that stand alone. 
Every special sin has its long preparation. Probably the 
people that lived in Jezreel and Samaria often envied king 
Ahab. Samaria was his capital, Jezreel his neighboring 
country residence, — places related to each other very much 
as Berlin and Potsdam, London and Windsor, or Paris and 
Versailles. Was not Ahab a king, with palaces and gardens, 
chariots and gems, a wonderful ivory house in Samaria, a 
sumptuous court-life, unending pleasures, and more than all, 
this beautiful Zidonian princess for his wife ? What if he 
did have faults ? In a king some things must be overlooked. 
Men were surprised, doubtless, when he went to heathen 
Phoenicia for his bride; but then — he was a king; political 
alliances are often necessary. They looked on askance when 
they saw the long bridal train, with its hundreds of priests 
and priestesses of Baal and Astarte, coming up from the city 
by the sea. But of course Jezebel could not be expected to 
become an Israelitess all at once. Alas! the days went by 
and affairs became no better. Sin did not right itself. Ahab 
was more in the power of his queen at the end of a year than 
at first. Soon Baal instead of Jehovah ruled in Israel. The 
processes were gradual, but sure. 

The avalanche in Switzerland rushes down at last ; but 
what of the melting snows all through the spring and sum- 
mer, until every water-drop has done its work and washed 
away the last pebble that supported the hanging mass of 
earth and ice ? The lightning-flash is sudden ; but what of 
the hidden electric forces that have been gathering in the 
atmosphere all through the heated months, so that at last 
the bolt must leap from the cloud to meet the discharge 
from the earth ? 

So morally. Ahab started wrong, as he knew. It was 



Lksson VI] NABOTH'S VINEYARD. 57 

not a question of one sin, but of sin. He would have his 
Zidonian wife, though it meant t Baal-worship. His good 
resolutions failed one by one. When at last he coveted the 
vineyard, his evil genius was at hand as ever, and he let 
her go on to the end of the transaction. Through years he 
had been laying the fatal train that was to shatter his 
kingdom and seal his doom. 

Who can tell just what moment of an evil course will 
bring the sinner to his abyss ? After the first step every 
step is a peril. Even quiet consent, passive yielding, is fatal. 
The only safety is in prompt, manly, uncompromising con- 
version, — turning away from sin forever. 

2. This brings us to the thought of God's patience. 
Ahab's rebellion had been long and obstinate : an alien mar- 
riage ; adopted idolatry ; persecutions for conscience' sake ; 
open disobedience in war ; and now covetousness, leading 
him to break the most sacred obligations and add robbery 
and murder to the list of his crimes. He had had many 
warnings from God. This triple crime of impiety, robbery, 
and murder settled the matter. God's word comes to Elijah, 
and Elijah comes to Ahab, - — in the vineyard so ill-gotten. 
The prophet appears suddenly, but the king speaks first. 
Ahab in his vineyard does not seem to have been surprised 
by Elijah. He anticipated evil, as the sinner always does. 
Adam and Eve in their garden expected to hear the voice of 
their Judge. " Hast thou found me, mine enemy ? " Ahab 
said. He knew that he should be found. His conscience 
had found him long before. God is never far behind con- 
science. Elijah answered, " I have found thee : because thou 
hast sold thyself to do that which is evil in the sight of the 
Lord." 

Ahab had bought a vineyard, and sold himself. He was 
more of a land-owner, less of a man. He was like many a 
man to-day, who will stretch the truth, offer or take a bribe, 



58 NABOTH'S VINEYARD. [First Quartkk. 

cheat in a trade, gain some advantage at the expense of 
honor and faith, forgetful that the real and lasting fortune 
is character, and that the main question is not what a man 
has, but what a man is. 

" Wealth and rule slip down with Fortune, as her wheel turns round ; 
He who keeps his faith, he only cannot he discrowned. 
Little were a change of station, loss of life or crown, 
But the wreck were past retrieving, if the Man fell down." 

The time had come for Ahah to receive a harder lesson 
than ever before. The prophet spoke Jehovah's decree, 
as Ahab's own signet had given authority to kill Naboth. 
As Naboth had died, so should Ahab die. As Naboth's 
family had been cut off, so should Ahab's race disappear. 
As Naboth's blood had been spilled outside the city, upon 
that very spot should the dogs lick up the blood of Ahab; 
and there too should dogs eat Jezebel. 

The awful curse brought him to his senses and to his 
knees. He rent his clothes, put sackcloth upon his 
flesh, fasted, lay in sackcloth, and went softly. It was 
not hypocrisy, it was a sort of repentance ; but it was 
a repentance only from fear, and hence wore off. The 
Spanish proverb is true : " When the river is passed, the 
saint is forgotten." Yet so long as Ahab's soul was hum- 
bled, God would not smite him. He was granted a re- 
prieve, and it was announced from heaven that his dynasty 
should not end with him, but later. 

God is always patient. We sin ; he pleads and waits. 
We go on grasping after what is not our own : let my 
will, not thine, be done, is the prayer offered by every 
deed. God warns, instructs, shows us in a thousand 
ways that his will is right, and that it is in the very 
nature of things our destruction if we oppose it. He 
tempts us with every promise, and shows us the fair 
destiny awaiting those who love truth and are obedient 



Lessox VI. ] NABOTH'S VINEYARD. 59 

to him. At last some evil comes to us from our wrong- 
doing, and we are unfeignedly sorry ; but it is more the 
sorrow of a frightened than of a truly penitent soul. 
But the divine heart is yet patient. The story of God's 
patience with Ahab is wonderful, but it is the story of 
his patience with most of us. We, too, are covetous to 
the last degree. My comfort, my pleasure, my wealth, my 
home, my loves, my will, — all these will I have, though 
at the expense of every other man's comfort, pleasure, 
wealth, home, loves, and will. And to this desperate cov- 
etousness of ours God matches his infinite self-sacrifice. 
Day after day he allows his will to be contravened, his 
love to be set at nought, his rightful possessions to be 
stolen from him, for the sake of the sinner. God delays. 
This fact was such a wonder even to thoughtful heathen 
that Plutarch wrote a treatise upon the subject, " The Delay 
of the Deity in punishing the Wicked." But to us God's 
delay is magnified and rendered more wonderful by what 
we know of Jesus Christ. Patience is the handmaid of* 
forgiveness ; it waits upon the sinner's hearty repentance 
and acceptance of Christ. 

3. Thirdly, we have to note the significant fact that the 
curse upon Ahab fell at last. Sin must meet its doom. 
Brief and selfish repentance is not enough. If sin is not 
slain, it w T ill slay. God's patience after all has its condi- 
tions. Years pass by, Ahab still living. At last he under- 
takes a war, and is slain in battle. They drove his bloody 
chariot home, with his dead body, and gave him burial. 
When they washed the chariot at the pool, dogs licked up 
the blood-stains, and in the reddened water harlots bathed. 
This was an awful, a polluting thing ; the people saw and 
talked of it; their historians recorded it; and it was re- 
membered as a fulfilment of the curse spoken by the man 
of God a dozen years before. 



60 NABOTH'S VINEYARD. [First Quarter. 

Then came Jezebel's fate. The conqueror appeared be- 
fore her gates. Jezebel to the last, she " tired her head," 
smeared her eyebrows with antimony, and thus decked out 
courted death by throwing wide her lattice and taunting 
the victor as he approached. Looking up, he gave a quick 
command. Jezebel's own servants seized her and hurled 
her from the window. The lash fell on Jehu's chariot- 
horses. They plunged forward over her body and tram- 
pled her down, her blood spurting over them and upon the 
walls of the palace. As Jehu went in and sat down to 
his feast, the dogs of the city fed on Jezebel's tiesh. God's 
word had come to pass ; it always comes to pass. 

Whether soon or late, the soul that sinneth it shall die. 
It stands written that though the heavens pass away, the 
word of the Lord shall not pass away. It is the final ver- 
dict: " He that seeketh his life shall lose it." The old ques- 
tion, "What will a man give in exchange for his life?" was 
answered : " Naboth's vineyard is the price for such as Ahab 
and Jezebel." " I will give ten years of my life to business 
alone; after that, religion," some other man is saying. "I 
will wait one year, and then obey God," some young person 
reflects. Eemember that if you yourself set such a price 
on one year, or one decade of your life, you may end in sell- 
ing the whole of life at the same rate. If you do that, 
remember also that God's word will be kept at the last. 

4. What of Naboth and his sons ? They were good men, 
so far as we are told, yet they died miserably. They were 
victims of injustice and cruelty, their very piety hastening 
their end and making them martyrs. Are we to conclude 
from this that what we have said concerning the doom of 
sin is untrue ? Shall we draw the inference that the good 
and the bad are treated alike, so that there is no profit in 
godliness ? It would be unfortunate to turn away from our 
lesson with this question unanswered. 



Lesson VI] NABOTH'S VINEYARD. 61 

Disasters come even to the best men ; but Jesus bids us 
not to infer that a man is wicked merely from what 
happens to him. A tower in Siloam fell and crushed the 
passers-by. The Great Teacher said that it was not to be 
regarded as a judgment upon them for their sins. He taught 
that we cannot judge in this way at all. But it is very 
different if God says that a certain thing shall happen as a 
punishment, a just retribution, and then it does happen ex- 
actly as was foretold. In that case we have no alternative, 
but must regard it as punishment. If God says, by a law of 
nature, that fire will burn, I must consider burning a just 
retribution upon me if I wilfully put my hand in the 
flame. But if I am hurled into the flame by accident or 
by an enemy, it is no punishment. Ahab might have been 
finally slain in war, and without the special word of the 
Lord we could not have declared it a retribution from God. 
On the other hand Naboth might have lived and died peace- 
fully, and we could not have determined merely from this 
circumstance that he was righteous. Naboth's fate was like 
that of all " the noble army of martyrs " who have died for 
the truth ; he was stoned to death. So was Saint Stephen. 
Saint James was killed with the sword. Saint Paul was be-' 
headed at Borne. Polycarp was burned. So untold hosts 
have died for their faith. Each suffered an awful death, yet 
joyfully and triumphantly. There was not a human torch 
that burned in the gardens of Nero that July evening in the 
year 64 who was not more blessed than the living emperor 
himself as he drove among them in his chariot. You can 
never tell from the mere observation of what befalls a man 
whether he is good or bad. But if God says, This shall be 
his doom, or This shall be his reward, then when the event 
comes we know that God's word has been fulfilled. 



ius&on vii. 3flebruarp 15. 



ELIJAH TAKE^ TO HEAYEK 

2 Kings ii: 1-11. 

By Rev. NATHAN E. WOOD, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y. 

HPHE strange vicissitudes of a human life, our kinship 
■*- with them is so close, are always the most picturesque 
as well as the most fascinating history. They are, with 
variations, every man's autobiography. One cannot read 
personal history coldly. It always begets in us a kind of 
heat, — the glow of interest, of sympathy, and finally of 
fellowship. The Old Testament is not wanting in the lucid 
statement of great truths and principles, but it lives best in 
its glowing and realistic biographies. Inspired writers do 
not portray unreal and impossible lives. The lights and the 
shadows in each picture are faithfully depicted. The human- 
ness of their sayings and doings is never omitted ; they are 
real men and women. 

Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, walks before us as a 
man most sensitively and keenly alive to every human 
interest and sympathy. He has left us almost nothing of 
utterance, but almost everything of life. Isaiah lives by 
his words, — poetic, majestic, prophetic; Elijah, by his 
deeds, — fierce, courageous, righteous. Quickly, again and 
again, he passes through the whole range of human emo- 
tions. Now he is in the exultation of triumph, again in 
the gloom of despair, and there is scarcely "a day's jour- 
ney " between. The fiery temper, the fierce zeal, the swift 



Lesson VII.] ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. 63 

action, the hot, hissing words of denunciation, the imperious 
arraignment of king and court before the tribunal of the 
righteous Jehovah, are set over against great depression of 
spirit, querulousness of complaint, and, at times, despair 
of the triumph of righteousness among an idolatry-loving 
people. His was a wild, rugged, terrifying appearance, the 
dread of whose presence has not even yet passed away 
from the Orient. " Elijah comes ! " is still a phrase with 
which to excite apprehension. The long hair, the shaggy, 
sheep-skin garment, the sudden, unexpected appearances of 
this man of the desert, and the awful energy of his words, 
left a vivid impression upon all Israel and upon all time. 
His fidelity had never failed ; he had remained steadfast 
in his service to Jehovah. Again and again in the crises 
of Israel's history had he come forth to confront the 
powerful house of Ahab, with its inspiring demon, the 
bloody Jezebel. Feared, dreaded, hated in Ahab's court, 
he had been the voice of Jehovah speaking in the midst 
of a dark and idolatrous time. Among the faithless, he' 
almost alone was faithful. 

Elijah's great triumph was now at hand. He had been 
pursued, persecuted, baffled, homeless, a wanderer in deserts. 
His day had been stormy, wild, and dark, with here and 
there flashes of light and triumph through the riven clouds. 
But at the eventide there was to be light, — a very majesty 
of noontide splendor. God was to give him a wonderful 
escort into the gates of the Celestial City. As he goes by 
divine command from Gilgal to Bethel, Elisha is with him. 
With modest humility, Elijah bids his loved companion 
to tarry, for he is too great to seem in any way to boast 
of the triumph of his departure. A great life, like Elijah's, 
does not need witnesses to testify to its greatness or its 
goodness. But Elisha will not leave him. 



64 ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. [First Quarter. 

A GREAT FRIENDSHIP. 

Elisha's decisive words, "As the Lord liveth, and as 
thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee," are the sign of 
that strong friendship which had grown up between these 
two men of God. Every extraordinary nature must needs 
have friendships to correspond, else its deeper life will remain 
untouched. It is a positive danger to have only little 
friendships, to touch other men only in the way of small 
fellowship. It indicates either that the man is selfish, 
unwilling to let his fellows into his life to share whatever 
of wealth it may possess, or that he is so unlovely and 
repulsive that no one is willing to share a life so forbidding 
A selfish heart is always the secret brooding-place of every 
evil; but whenever a man throws open the doors of his 
being for great, warm, living friendships, receiving his friends 
with cordial hospitality, giving them the best of his wealth, 
bidding them sit as the perpetual guests at his table, and 
generously sharing with them whatever refreshes his own 
soul, that man cannot grow selfish, for a selfish life is always 
small and inhospitable. It will not nurse large friendships, 
because it cannot. 

Elijah was essentially a solitary man. His peculiar tem- 
perament, as well as his mission, intensified this isolation. 
His fierce words seemed to indicate a nature that must be 
forbidding to the sensitive overtures of any deep friendship. 
But it was not so. The greatness of his soul and the integ- 
rity of his heart made friendship welcome and even neces- 
sary. Are not men known by the friends whom they make 
and keep ? Are not these the indexes of the man's real self- 
hood? Elijah without his close friend, Elisha, would not 
have been so great. We should have felt less certain of the 
purity and nobility of the great prophet if the strong friend- 
ship of these two had not certified them. How many hearts 



Lesson VII.] ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. 60 

have been thrilled by that sweet story of Ruth and Naomi, 
recounting the gentle ministries of their mutual love ! The 
whole world of womanhood has been blessed by that simple 
tale of unselfish womanliness. In like manner strong, manly, 
mutual love adorns the lives of these two great prophets. It 
was a friendship of love grown strong in a common ser- 
vice of holy living, in similar lofty aims of righteousness, and 
in their one divine calling. There is no friendship so rich 
or true as that nurtured in the atmosphere of which God 
is the life. And so, in holy companionship, the twain went 
on from Gilgal to Bethel, from Bethel to Jericho, and from 
Jericho to the very gates of Paradise. Worthy is the friend- 
ship which looks Paradise-ward. Chariots and horses of 
fire, with all manner of celestial splendors, lie along such 
pathways. 

A GK-EAT SCHOOL. 

As Elijah and Elisha go down the slopes of the Jordan 
interesting on-lookers appear. The sons of the prophets 
come forth from their schools with eager interest to witness 
the close of Elijah's eventful life. They had doubtless often 
heard his words. He had been their revered teacher in the 
Holy Scriptures ; for in these schools nothing took prece- 
dence of the Sacred Book. All wisdom and light were found 
in it, and in it they studied daily. A Hebrew school without 
the Bible would have seemed a monstrosity. At home as 
well as in school, from childhood to majority, the Hebrew 
youth were taught the law and the prophets. Not merely 
the Jews' Sabbath-day school of formal worship, but their 
week-day schools as well, inculcated the Word of God. In 
the schools of the prophets, even though the court and 
nation gave themselves over to idolatry, that Word was 
kept living and pure. Here Jehovah was revered and wor- 
shipped ; for the instruction was maintained, not merely to 



66 ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. [First Quarter. 

perpetuate the prophetic office and to provide for it men 
who should be well trained, but also to give any Hebrew 
youth who might attend, a thorough knowledge of the 
inspired words of Jehovah. 

Such were the youth who reverently stood afar off to 
behold the mighty prophet of the Lord exchange earth for 
heaven. It is always the fore-court of heaven where Chris- 
tian men gather about the bed of a Christian whose " time 
of departure is at hand." It is a foretaste of the heavenly 
society.' Wickedness is never comforting in the presence 
of death. The righteous God and his faithful children are 
the only companions whose society gives light when the 
shadows begin to deepen toward the valley of death. It is 
a notable close of a godly life when dear spiritual friends, 
when a chosen company of saintly men, stand with serene 
face to witness the triumphant departure. Jericho, Jordan, 
and the hills of Gilead were witnesses to such a wonderful 
scene that day. 

The young men from the schools of the prophets may 
perhaps not have read that luminous lesson aright. The 
real glory of that scene was not " the chariots and horses 
of fire," but the lesson it conveyed that God honors and 
cares for his faithful servants, and that the favor of God 
is always infinitely better than the favor of kings. As they 
that day looked across to the far Gilead hills, they might 
read written on that rugged landscape many lessons of 
Hebrew history. There Jacob had wrestled with the Angel 
of the Lord at Peniel There, on Xebo, had stood Moses 
to take his first and his last look on the Land of Promise. 
Thither had come the hosts of Israel under Joshua, to 
pass through the Jordan dry-shod. Thither king David 
had fled, uncrowned, when pursued by the unnTial Absalom. 
Every one of these lessons emphasized the loving mercy 
and care of Jehovah. If these sons of the prophets could 



Lesson VII.] ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. (37 

have read prophecy as they read history, they would have 
seen standing there in the Jordan, against the background 
of Gilead, a Man kinglier than all others, a Prophet greater 
than Elijah, even Jesus, the Redeemer of the world. It 
was a unique school-room, rich in divine lessons, wherein 
these students stood on the hills of Jericho as they waited 
and watched for the translation of Elijah. 

A GKEAT MIRACLE. 

The two prophets came to the brink of the Jordan. Once, 
long ago, had those fluent waters stood still at the word of 
divine power to let all Israel pass through on dry ground 
from the wilderness to Canaan, from weary hope to assured 
possession. Now again does a pilgrim stand there, with life 
and its wilderness behind him, the land of promise before 
him, and only this Jordan "rolling darkly between." Will 
it part again and let the waiting pilgrim through ? These 
Jordans always part when God accompanies a traveller 
from earth to heaven ; and be the waters never so dark 
or raging, God's friends shall pass through them dry-shod and 
triumphant. 

Elijah had well learned the lesson of the divine power 
over nature. At his word in the great trial on Carmel, fire 
had come down from heaven in the presence of assembled 
Israel and consumed the altar with its sacrifice. The rain 
had been his willing minister. The heavens had been 
closed and opened again by his prayer. He had miracu- 
lously multiplied " the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil." 
The ravens had provided him with food. He had stood 
on Horeb when the wind and the earthquake had shown 
their terrific power ; but the " still small voice " had taught 
him that God was greater than all these, and that physical 
forces were but servitors of the divine will. So now these 
turbid Jordan waters shall not be able to stay the pass- 



63 ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. [First Quarter. 

ing of a divinely guarded soul from the Old Canaan to the 
New. The waters smitten by the mantle of Elijah obey, and 
stand parted while the two prophets pass through. It was the 
last of Elijah's great miracles, but its lesson could not be lost. 
The God of the parted Jordan, who had centuries before led 
all Israel through, had not forsaken or forgotten his people. 
Then, now, and forever he stands ready to lead his friends 
through the Jordan which separates earth from heaven. 
The divine love, and the divine power to help, do not lessen 
or grow faint as the godly soul nears the chilly stream. 
Having loved his own who are in the world, God loves them 
even to the end. 

A GREAT BLESSING. 

The final scene is at hand. Elisha, sadly certain of his 
near-impending loss, begs as a final request that the spirit 
of Elijah may rest on him in double measure. He knew 
that no man could fill the great prophet's place, and that he 
himself, to whom all men would look, would fail in the pro- 
phetic office without the blessing of double grace. He was 
unlike Elijah. His work was to be close intermingling with 
men in society and court. He could not expect to add 
to his words any weird power by sudden apparitions out 
of the wilderness. His aspect was not awesome or fear- 
compelling. His character was not rugged and towering, 
like the wild Horeb rocks. He was to do among all classes 
of men the plain, daily tasks of a teacher and prophet. He 
was to be a daily resident in human society. His were the 
more common work-a-day tasks of life. 

To do common duties in a noble, unselfish, godly way 
always requires double grace. It is comparatively easy to 
perform great and conspicuous work in a large way. So 
many eyes are watching, one scarcely dares act otherwise 
than in a noble spirit. A mean act in a great service some- 
how mocks a man, stings him, shames him The incon- 



Lesson VII.] ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. 69 

gruity is a continual scourge to his feelings. But in the 
minor services of life, in the home, in society, and in his 
daily tasks, he will do a thousand small deeds of meanness 
with but little pain or shame. Was it not this which made 
our Master say to us, " Whosoever shall give to drink unto 
one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name 
of a disciple, shall in no wise lose his reward " ? Many 
disciples are ready to endure martyrdom : fewer are ready 
to carry cups of cold water. Every man needs double 
grace for minor service. Never fear but that he will do the 
few great acts of his life in a large way, but fear much 
lest he shall do its ten thousand little deeds in a small, 
•mean way. 

Elisha prays to inherit Elijah's good spirit. No man 
ever yet asked to inherit other people's wickedness. Many 
build that kind of a fortune for themselves, but what man 
is there who wishes to be heir to it ? The wickedest of 
men do not care to entail their wickedness upon their sons. 
Not the faults, the failures, or the sins of Elijah did Elisha 
pray to inherit, but his spirit of obedience, of close fellowship 
with God, of power to do the work of righteousness. He 
wished to receive Elijah's spirit of " other-worldliness." 
Whatever of goodness or godliness any man may have, he 
would like to transmit it, and his heirs would like to inherit 
it. Who would not count himself fortunate to receive a 
double portion of a good man's spirit? But the getting 
of such a spirit always has coupled with it a condition. 
" Thou hast asked a hard thing," said Elijah : " if thou see 
me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee ; 
but if not, it shall not be." The condition then as now 
is. watching, serving, and waiting ; and if this condition be 
fulfilled, other men also may receive from Elijah's God, 
in double and even treble portions if they need, Elijah's 
excellent spirit. 



70 ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. [First Quarter. 

THE GREAT TRANSLATION. 

" As the)' still went on and talked," — surely the con- 
versation must have "been heavenly, — "the chariots of fire 
and the horses of fire " came swiftly down and bore Elijah 
away. The prophet who had followed the paths of the 
wilderness alone, who had come a wanderer and hungry to 
the gate of Zarephath, who had walked, dusty and weary, 
every road in the kingdom, who had run swifter than Ahab's 
chariots from Carmel " to the entrance of Jezreel," is at 
last borne along life's highways in chariots of fire, sur- 
rounded by angelic throngs. There is no more " weariness 
of life," hunger, or persecution. It is his time of triumph. 
The wicked Ahab, who had hunted him " as a partridge upon 
the mountains," was defeated and dead, and the very " dogs 
had licked his blood by the pool of Samaria," where his vic- 
tim, Naboth, had been stoned to death. The fierce, relentless, 
heathenish Jezebel was soon to lie mangled by the wall of 
Jezreel, and the dogs were to eat her flesh there. Ahab and 
Jezebel, in the splendor and power of royalty, haters of right- 
eousness, with seeming ability to gratify every desire, courted 
and applauded, called great by the world, but now the portion 
of dogs ; Elijah, hunted, hated, loving righteousness, speed- 
ing his swift way heavenward in the chariots of God, — 
such are " the reversals of human judgments." 

God's saints may be led through many a wilderness, 
wherein lie more defeats than victories. Carmel with its 
splendid triumph may be followed by persecution and de- 
spair, " under the juniper tree, a day's journey from Beer- 
sheba ; " but the final outcome of righteousness will always 
be the escort of heaven and the crown of rejoicing. No man 
may know all the divine plan for a human life which has 
made God its centre; no man may understand its strange 
vicissitudes. God has made that his own secret. But the 



Lesson VII.] ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. 71 

outcome of it all he has published upon the very heavens. 
Elijah and the chariots of fire are forever an object-lesson 
written luminously for all men to read. A godly life cannot 
suffer final defeat. Triumphant righteousness in heaven and 
struggling righteousness in the earth are inseparably joined, 
and at the right time the one will despatch its " chariots of 
fire" to bring the other to its home in glory. When God 
sends to take his faithful servants home from earth to heaven, 
it is not a time for fear, but for triumph. Just beyond the 
passage of the turbid Jordan are the waiting messengers of 
God to bear them to the Golden Gate. 

Sacred history offers of Elijah but one more glimpse. 
More than a thousand years later he stands in glory beside 
the suffering Son of Man approaching his passion. It is 
upon one of his own favorite mountain-summits. He is 
talking with the Christ. Of what ? The answer is interest- 
ing. As when parted from Elisha so long ago upon the 
hills of Gilead, he still discourses upon the wonders of God's 
goodness, care, and plans. These themes have not grown old 
with him "in glory," but they still occupy his thought 
and furnish the matter of his conversation. He is still 
upon the errands of Jehovah, — the glad messenger of the 
heavenly will. He is come to talk with Christ upon " the 
decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem," and the 
glory which should follow. Did his speech have added fervor 
and power from the vivid memories of a thousand years 
before, when he passed through the portals of glory in the 
chariots of fire? Living, conscious, blessed, eagerly busy yet 
upon the Almighty's missions, talking ever of the divine 
goodness and glory, — such is our last glimpse of Elijah a 
thousand years after he has passed into the heavens. 



iusson viii. jfcbruarp 22. 



ELIJAHS SUCCESSOR 

2 Kings ii: 12-22. 
Bx Rev. J. L. CHENEY, Ph.D., Ypsilanti, Mich. 

I. THE BEREAVEMENT: Elisha mourning for the spirit- 
taught Elijah. 
^\ Y father, my father ! " through the wilderness solitude 
1 resounded the bitter cry. It was the lament of 
orphanhood, the wail of the mourner, such as Egypt once 
heard over her dead first-born. For an instant the over- 
whelming sense of personal loss has burst in upon the heart. 
Called out from the field like the prophet Amos, Elisha, the 
young farmer, had at the word of the Tishbite left his 
plough to serve him as a son serves a father. Stronger even 
than the ties of nature were the bonds that held the young 
learner to the revered master. How tenderly the Apostle 
Paul used to write, "My beloved son Timothy." How beau- 
tiful the relationship between many a teacher or preacher 
and the earnest learner who like Elisha counts it his high- 
est honor to " pour water on the hands " of such an older 
guide ! 

With the sad wail was joined the outward demonstration. 
So Jacob rent his clothes when the bloody coat revealed the 
fate of his Joseph. So did Job's friends, in token of their 
deep sorrow. Shrewd Jews sometimes estimated skilfully 
how much the clothes would be injured by this rite. V ith 
Elisha there was no calculation; the garments were rent 



Lesson VIII.] ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. 73 

from top to bottom. It was not for his great heart to re- 
press or to conceal his grief. In seeking to honor him who 
said, " I am the resurrection and the life," some, in burying 
their dead, reject all tokens of grief, flooding instead the 
death-chamber with bright light, and decking the house 
with garlands. But who spoke the words, " Blessed are 
they that mourn " ? Is it not written that " Jesus wept" in 
presence of death ? Elisha's bitter lamentation and rent 
clothes unite to sanction our sorrow even when God takes 
our loved ones as his own to heaven. 

" My father ! " Elisha had discovered in his preceptor the 
loving father-heart. But for this almost unconscious testi- 
mony, we should be nearly certain to have a one-sided view 
of Elijah. President John Quincy Adams, a tiger in debate, 
is commonly pictured as among the fighting politicians of 
American history. How corrective of this to contemplate him 
even to old age kneeling every night to repeat the prayer 
he learned at his mother's knee, — "Now I lay me down to 
sleep." ! The usual thought of Elijah makes him simply 
"the prophet of fire," "the greatest and sternest of Hebrew 
prophets." He whose very name, " My God is Jehovah," 
utters a stout protest against idolatry, appears most often 
as the messenger of wrath, hurling curses against the un- 
godly king, the wicked Jezebel, and her Baal-worship. 

Elisha reveals the other side of his character. Though, like 
Melchizedek, bursting in upon the record with no detailed 
genealogy, " without father and without mother," Elijah, the 
houseless, homeless prophet, was a man " of like passions 
with us." The gospels reveal only his gentler deeds, — 
blessing the widow of Sarepta, turning the heart of the 
fathers to the children, restoring all things. The only 
apparent exception, Luke ix. 54, the Eevised Version omits. 
All honor to Elisha that he had learned thus to appreciate 
the grand old prophet ! How often an aged saint would be 



74 ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. [First Quarter. 

greatly comforted if he only knew that some one cared for 
him ! Hush, be still ! the young prophet mourns his prophet 
parent. All the happy hours, all the glad experiences, all 
the hallowed bliss of the seven years' guardianship, his 
memory brings back. Thronging through his heart, these 
tender memories overwhelm him. In the agony of this sep- 
aration the world gains an entrancing glimpse of prophet 
and pupil, each great-hearted. 

" The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." The 
range of thought widens. Beyond his own personal loss 
Elisha mourns that of the people. Chariots and horses, once 
forbidden, had become the most effective arms in Israel's 
military service ; yet better than those was the presence 
of the great Gileadite. Mightier than serried hosts, more 
powerful than whirling chariots, — the heavy artillery of 
that age, — more valiant than bravest cavalry, stronger than 
any army, was Elijah in Elisha's eyes. 

Nor was this an exaggeration. Eecount what Elijah 
had done for his nation. See him crushing out its greatest 
enemy, idolatry. Sharp in discerning evil, he was no less 
stern in putting it away, in denouncing sin and announcing 
God's will. Leader and inspiration of Jehovah's wor- 
shippers, Elijah had indeed been a mighty power, Israel's 
surest defence. Wherein ? In that the people through 
him had been to so goodly an extent kept in fellowship 
with God. What did that signify ? Remember Sodom. 
Long as one righteous lingered, destruction waited. " Haste 
thee, escape thither ; for I cannot do anything till thou be 
come thither." So the fate of the battle at Eephidim 
turned on one man, Moses. So Israel was saved at Eben- 
ezer by one man, Samuel. Over the death-bed of Elisha 
himself those same sublime words are repeated by his 
king : " The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." 
Truly, " wisdom is better than strength," and righteousness 



Lesson VIII.] ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. 75 

exalteth a nation. How widely Elijah differs from Wash- 
ington, yet in neither life would the career have been 
possible without the character. Both stand for inflexible 
integrity, for power in righteousness ; the armies of a 
great nation retreated before each ; through each the course 
of history was signally changed. Not by might nor by 
power, but by the God-fearing spirit did these leaders 
accomplish their noble work. 

II. the bequest: Elisha receiving the Spirit. 

" Be still, and know that I am God." This at first 
thought might have seemed to be God's will touching 
Elisha. Not so. After his transfiguration, duty calls Jesus 
down from the mount to heal the lunatic. After the as- 
cension, disciples may not staud gazing up into heaven, 
but must hasten back from Olivet to receive at Jerusalem 
the promised Spirit. Even so the young farmer-prophet, 
rapt and dazed though he is, may not linger at the scene 
of his master's translation. 

Just before him was the sheep-skin mantle. Falling 
from the prophet as he went upward, it came to Elisha 
as a cherished relic. Years before, it had been laid upon 
him when ploughing. For the last seven years how often 
he had seen it ! Now, as at first, it was a call to service. 
More than a relic, it was a symbol. Aaron's garments were 
put upon his son at Mount Hor, Moses thus recognizing 
the transfer of the high-priesthood to the younger man. In 
all spheres the falling mantle has become a synonyme 
for the transfer both of honor and of unfinished work be- 
queathed to a chosen successor. Nor was Elisha slow to 
seize the gift. For it he was watching. With eyes strained 
to see all that mortal vision could, he had been peeiing 
upward, fearful lest he lose aught that Elijah's promise 
had contained. 



76 ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. [First Quarter. 

Like Solomon, Elisha had made a supreme choice. What 
he sought was promised him on one condition. He had 
tried to fulfil this ; would he gain the blessing ? Like 
Moses, like Ezekiel, like Daniel, Elisha had with eyes 
" opened " seen the blinding, majestic, mysterious vision of 
the Divine Glory. Wonderful privilege, to view the pomp 
in which God takes his beloved to his home ! Around the 
dying Christian's face are occasionally caught rare glimpses 
of the inflooding glory. Elisha had seen much. Had he 
seen all ? God had taken the master. This much Elisha 
knew ; but whither ? In the early dawn of the day of grace 
it was not given saints to know the fulness of the apostles' 
revelation concerning heaven. Where was Elijah now ? 
The rabbis, later, taught that Elijah had been carried to 
the Garden of Eden, whence he would come again in 
Israel's sorest need. Could Elisha be sure of aught like 
this ? Would his last prayer be granted ? The mantle 
brings blessed and sufficient answer ; it tells him that 
his title is clear. Though walking back to the Jordan 
with only a memory and a mantle, he knows that the 
eldest son's double inheritance is his ; he is Elijah's chosen 
successor. 

He reaches the river with Elijah's last miracle fresh in 
his memory. What can the new prophet do in face of 
these waters ? It is the one opportunity of a lifetime to 
use the old mantle. Never again will it be of service. The 
fateful moment sees the opportunity improved. Like Moses 
with his rod, like Elijah with this same garment, Elisha 
wraps the mantle together, smites the waters, and appeals 
to Jehovah. Where is Elijah? had been a great question. 
Now a greater arises: Where is the Lord God of Elijah? 
This was no word of doubt, as we see in the prophet Jere- 
miah's complaints because the priests of his day omit it. 
It was the cry of faith, firm and vivid because of the divine 



Lesso.n VIII.] ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. 77 

vision. " Manifest thyself, Jehovah ! Thou hast taken 
Elijah : bless me. Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth ! " 
Solemnly he advances into the Jordan. Thrilling must have 
been the scene as the lone prophet walked steadily through 
the new-made path. And behold, that Lord who kept Moses 
and Joshua, and who said through Isaiah, " When thou pass- 
est through the waters, I will be with thee," responds to 
the appeal. The mantle is his, and at its touch the waters 
recede. Yes, Elisha has inherited the longed-for Spirit. 
He is as Elijah had been, a representative on earth of 
the" Divine Majesty. 

How often the timid beginner in Sunday-school or pulpit 
work has asked earnestly, " Where is the Lord God of the 
fathers ? " And when such young servant of God has been 
enabled to lead happy converts to the cross, or has learned 
by other plain token how difficulties recede and God honors 
faith, overwhelming joy has put new and rich meaning into 
the promise, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that be- 
lieveth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." 

The sons of the prophets, who "stood to view," were no 
careless observers. As they see Elisha repeating Elijah's 
miracle, the chorus unites to declare, " The spirit of Elijah 
doth rest on Elisha." Mendelssohn's grand oratorio vividly 
depicts this greeting. It is as if Jehovah were presenting 
his new ambassador : " Behold, my servant, mine elect, in 
whom my soul delighteth. On him the spirit of God shall 
rest, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of 
counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear 
of the Lord." High honor had come to those sons of the 
prophets ! It was a great token of his regard when God 
took of the spirit that was upon Moses and gave it to the 
seventy elders. Honor comes to any class or congregation 
when the Almighty puts his Spirit upon one of the number. 
Happy if the members can discern the heavenly gift ! " He 



78 ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. [First Quarter. 

that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall 
receive a prophet's reward." 

Watch these students. They bow in devout reverence. 
They worship not the mantle, not the miracle. It is no 
relic-worship, no hero-worship. They see that God's power 
rests upon Elisha. Would that observers might discover 
this in every professor of religion ! Nothing more quickly 
evokes the respect of associates. Fear not the decline of 
power in the ministry or the Church so long as the Spirit 
rests visibly on those baptized and ordained. The mantle of 
Elijah without " the double portion " is only a meaningless 
relic. The succession without the Spirit is but an empty 
honor. 

in. the beginning : Elisha, the Spirit-taught, teaching and 



Thus highly blessed, Elisha begins his public career. His 
record occupies a larger space in the sacred narrative than 
is given to that of any other prophet. These closing verses 
of our lesson present a brief epitome of his sixty years' 
activity. Once the prophet is approached for counsel : he 
gives it, only to be unheeded. Again he is approached 
for deliverance from a painful form of temporal need : he 
heeds the cry and purifies the spring of water. 

" Let us go and seek the master " was not so strange a 
request. Eemember, the young men had not gathered at 
any death -bed of Elijah. Was he indeed dead ? Obadiah 
reminds us how the Spirit used to carry the prophet hither 
and thither. Elisha had seen his mysterious departure. The 
students had not, and for satisfactory reasons he would not 
tell them of it. Moreover, could it be that the young Elisha 
was to carry on the work of the missing prophet ? Notice 
the contrast : the old man, tall, gaunt, long-haired, severely 
stern ; his young successor so different in all these traits ! 



Lesson VIII.] ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. 79 

Elijah Lad been " the prophet of solitude," dwelling in desert 
and cave ; Elisha is " the prophet of society," winsome, com- 
panionable, beloved of princes and of peasants. No wonder 
that the students desired to search for the missing Elijah. 
That Elisha vetoes this might have seemed sufficient to end 
the matter, were it not that young human nature is constantly 
refusing good advice. " Don't drift into those amusements, 
my son," said a wise New England father; "you lose, not 
gain. I know, for I've had experience." "Just so," stub- 
bornly replied the son ; " but I want the experience for my- 
self." Against Elisha's plain-spoken advice, they urged their 
plea. Perplexed, embarrassed, feeling that his attitude might 
give rise to ill-natured suspicion, he yielded. No Elijah re- 
wards the search. Fifty " sons of strength " could ransack 
every corner of this little district. But God had shut the 
door of the heavens ; Elijah was beyond their ken. Return- 
ing weary and wiser, they had learned that the successor 
had claims upon their respect. 

Elisha has left the desert and settled in the city. His 
rank is already recognized. Jericho, recently rebuilt, spite 
of Joshua's curse, is " pleasant for situation," " rising like 
an oasis from a broad plain of sand." Yet any city where 
" the water is nought " is always in danger. The rulers 
ask Elisha's help. 

Recall Elijah's first miracle. A poor, insignificant stran- 
ger, appearing like a flash, a defiant messenger of wrath, he 
was facing King Ahab and exclaiming, "No rain but at 
my word ! " When the men of Jericho present to Elisha 
their courteous petition, " Behold, we beseech thee, our cry- 
ing need ! " they expect as an answer, not a curse and a 
drought, but blessing and deliverance. Were they not im- 
pressed by the same Divine Spirit that led the rulers at 
Cana's feast to seek for help from him the beginning of 
whose miracles would be also a changing of water ? 



80 ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. [First Quarter. 

" Bring a new saucer and put salt therein." To sow 
the land with salt was a token of utter ruin. The salted 
land was a land accursed. The law, however, reads clearly : 
"With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt." That re- 
markable passage, Mark ix. 49, gives to this our Lord's 
sanction: "Salt is good." The salt poured on the new, 
round, metallic saucer is the emblem of purity, — the quality 
which the waters of Jericho lacked. " Thus saith the Lord, 
I have healed these waters." Whose, then, is the glory? 
Does Elisha yield to the temptation that overcame Moses ? 
Does he magnify his own share in bringing deliverance 
from drought ? Worthy of his name, " My God is deliver- 
ance," is the unassuming benefactor. Is it not significant 
that he inaugurated his benign career by cleansing a spring ? 
Type of the skilful religious teacher, he appreciated the 
lasting value of beginning at the source. Travellers around 
the ruins of Jericho find " Elisha's Fountain " still pleasant 
to the taste. Blessed are all they who in God's name cast 
the salt of grace into the springs of men's action. Such 
deserve grateful praise. Yet how often do they forget to 
copy Elisha when he ascribes all the glory to the Lord. 

Thus the successor begins. Students and citizens learn, 
with Elisha himself, that when God takes one worker, the 
mantle falls upon another. So it is ever. Just a century 
ago died James Manning. He was first president of the 
first " school of the prophets " among American Baptists. 
His successor, Jonathan Maxcy, was one of his students, 
whom he had baptized. Maxcy in turn baptized his suc- 
cessor, President Messer. Through the century God has 
raised up teacher after teacher, — Wayland, Anderson, Dodge, 
and many others, — to assume the mantle and let it fall in 
time on younger colleagues, whose honored privilege it be- 
came to put salt in the springs, so scattering God's bounte- 
ous blepsings among great communities and over the earth. 



Lesson VIII] ELIJAH'S SUCCESSOR. 81 

The new is never the exact copy of the old. The mould 
in which Elijah was fashioned God breaks, never to remake. 
John the Baptist, even, will not be like Elijah in all points. 
In Elisha men will see a surprising contrast to his predeces- 
sor. Yet with all the diversities of gifts there is always in 
men like these one spirit. 

The six sayings which follow may help as indexes to sum 
up the lesson. The prophet Elisha is found (1) deploring 
the loss of Elijah, (2) imploring the presence of Jehovah. 
The students worship (3) and distrust (4) ; alas for frail, 
fickle humanity ! The city appeals to Elisha (5), and is 
delivered from drought (6). In the bereavement Elisha 
mourns for the Spirit-taught ; in the bequest he gains the 
Spirit ; in the beginning of his career he gives counsel and 
deliverance. 

In the whole lesson the teaching of the Golden Text 
comes before us more clearly than it could ever have been 
presented to the prophet Zechariah. Mightier than any 
army of Israel or host of Baal was the lone Tishbite ; 
power over Nature and among men was wielded in ex- 
traordinary degree by the son of Shaphat. Yet for Elijah 
and Elisha both, success was possible only by the Divine 
Spirit. That Spirit God is ever ready to give us ; for that 
Spirit we are encouraged always to pray. 



ilcsson IX. ^aret) 1. 
THE SHU^AMMITES SOK 

2 Kings io: 25 37 . 
By Rev. C. H. WATSON, Arlington, Mass. 

THE instantaneous picture flashed upon us by this scrip- 
ture is that of a woman just approaching Mount Carmel 
in great haste, and under the stress of some recent calamity. 
She had often travelled the seventeen miles from Shunem, 
seeking prophetic teaching and religious worship ; but the 
six hours necessary for the journey never seemed so long 
as now. It was not the leisure pilgrimage of the worshipper 
anticipative of blessing and peace. Something had made it 
sudden, urgent, definite. An alarm possessed her that would 
have sped her, with a swiftness impossible to horses, for help, 
not the help of worship or of the truth, but of a man, — 
the man of God, the prophet of Israel. When we are struck 
by sudden terror, we want not only the truth, but a true 
man, — the wonderful comfort of one nearer to God and 
stronger with him than you know yourself to be. 

Who was the woman? What was her en and? How did 
it result ? 

She was the wife of an aged man of means, who lived in the 
village of Shunem, which lay on the road that the prophet 
Elisha took as he travelled from Samaria to Carmel. Our 
scripture calls her " a great woman," — doubtless a phrase 
common in that day to describe a woman who had a wealthy 
and influential husband. The fine opportunity that a crisis 



Lesson I X.J . THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. 83 

gives to study the character passing through it, will make us 
bold to call her " great " in a higher sense. There is noth- 
ing like a severe calamity to show the world who and what 
we are, and to whom and what we belong. But keen ob- 
servers can always get intimations of our quality before the 
calamity comes. It is clear in the context what this woman 
was in herself. " Context," I say, to distinguish that part of 
the narrative that has been arbitrarily separated from the 
part called " the lesson." The entire account of the Shunani- 
mite and her son is a single leaf of Scripture, none of which 
can well be torn off. 

Our impression that the woman is great, though rich, comes 
from her power to appreciate a great man and cultivate him, 
and the sagacious forms of gratitude that she showed for the 
privileges of his friendship. Such a woman would be quite 
certain to have an open eye for all best things, and prove her 
gratefulness for each one by wisely turning it to account. 
This woman had a finer discernment than her husband ; but 
to his credit it must be said that he made a good second, — 
he recognized wisdom, though it came to his wife first, and 
helped to justify it by willingly becoming its child himself. 
She discovered the prophet ; they both took him in. It was 
a simple process : the journeys to and fro of the man of God 
had become known to her. He had come in to eat bread as 
he passed. She had looked into his face, caught the tones of 
his voice, weighed some of his words, heard the praise of his 
works, and, womanlike, she says : That man is great in wis- 
dom and goodness. I cannot know him without being wiser 
and better. He will bless my husband and my house. And 
when thought had grown into plan, she said, " Husband, 
behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God. . . . 
Let us. make a little chamber on the wall ... for him ; 
and it shall be that when he cometh to us, he shall turn in 
thither." 



S4 THE SHUNAMMITE'S SOX. [First Quarter. 

There was deft appreciation of the prophet's thoughtful, 
prayerful life in the way that the room was built upon the 
roof, and the private stair connected with it, so that he might 
be conscious of no intrusion upon the family life, and they 
fear no disturbance of his own quiet hours. There were 
here the two elements of perfect hospitality. The prophet 
was sure that he was blessed by the family, and the family 
was equally certain of their blessing through the prophet, — 
surely a better condition than the social folly called " visit- 
ing," wherein one neither blesses nor is blessed, that rests 
on the mercenary level of quid pro quo ; which, being freely 
translated for our present purpose, means, " If you dare to 
visit me, I '11 visit you." High sense and fine tact spare the 
family that waste of spirit, and either seek good or do good 
through its hospitality. 

Another evidence of the woman's uncommon character is 
her contentment, — a virtue as rare among rich and influ- 
ential women as among the poor. Yea, rarer. The little 
that we have is reaching after the much that we have not ; 
and the much that we have is hungering for all. But 
this Shunammite had a contentment that at first baffled a 
prophet's gratitude. We do not receive long without craving 
the greater luxury of giving. True gratitude magnifies a 
little service, and would make its own requital still greater. 
Thus Elisha's courtly message to the woman through Gehazi : 
" Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care ; 
what is to be done for thee ? wouldest thou be spoken for to 
the king, or to the captain of the host ? " Her answer stamps 
her a woman, every inch : " I dwell among mine own peo- 
ple." I have all that I desire, and am contented with what 
I have. My circumstances and my people are my friends, 
and I am happy among them. The atmosphere of the man 
of God added to her love of husband ; her enjoyment of 
her people and her duty to them filled her cup. No crim- 



Lesson IX] THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. 85 

inal waste of herself in vain regrets, in repining, in straining 
after the impossible. She respected her life and filled her- 
self full of it, and it full of herself. 

What could the prophet do? How could he bless her? 
Such a question, put to a weak man by a strong one, some- 
times causes the weakling to surprise himself and his friends 
with a strong and pertinent suggestion. So Gehazi spoke 
at once of her life's single great defect, — her barrenness. 
" Verily she hath no child." To the Oriental woman child- 
lessness was the one desperate calamity. We shall have to 
keep on Oriental ground to appreciate the Shunanimite's 
solemn caution to the prophet when he said, " Thou shalt 
embrace a son." " Nay, my lord, thou man of God, do not 
lie unto thine handmaid ! " The blessing was so great, so 
unlikely, that her joy fluttered, and had no daring, hence 
merely expressed itself in impulsive warning against raising 
false expectations. But the man-child was born to her. 
Her arms, her heart, her home were full. With the passing 
years the child had grown deeper into her, and her reverence 
for the man of God had ripened into a perfect trust. But 
blessings are often only ways into woe. When this comes we 
would fain use for our. comfort the one " whom we believe." 

Such had her blessing become, and her errand to Elisha 
was; the one comfort that hope held out to sorrow. She was 
in the depths, and out of the depths would she cry unto God 
through his prophet. Her little son and only child had, with 
that natural passion that makes boys so precious to their 
fathers, been reaching out into his father's active life, having 
on a hot harvest-day gone out with him into the fields among 
the reapers. The boy was prostrated with the heat ; for the 
description points to an attack of sunstroke, where the first 
symptoms are violent pains in the head. The father, think- 
ing lightly of it, merely tells his servant to carry the child 
home to his mother. The mother's love showed itself in her 



S6 THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. [First Quarter. 

unbroken attention. She held him upon her knees until noon, 
when he died. 

True to her strong, resolute nature, she lost no time in 
fruitless lamentation, but all thought and action centred hi 
" the man of God." She bore the little body up to the pro- 
phet's bed. She had lost her child, but not her faith. She 
parried her husband's questionings, and was soon speeding 
with the servant to Mount Carmel, to the prophet. Elisha 
sees her coming, and quick suspicion of trouble makes him 
feel deeply and act quickly. He cannot wait ; her haste, the 
unusual time of the visit, the earnest manner, make him anx- 
ious to know before she gets near enough to tell. He hur- 
ries Gehazi to meet her with urgent questions. Gehazi only 
gets her favorite answer : " It is well." She knows Gehazi ; 
she has no mood for him, — the one who would soon thrust 
her away as she clasps the feet of the man of God suppli- 
cating. Gehazi was not up to this matter. He was down 
among thoughts about his master's personal dignity. As if it 
were a time for such trifles as that ! She and the prophet 
silence the servant and have their way, — she to overflow 
at last, the flood of pent-up grief issuing forth in that enig- 
matical form of reproach so Oriental : " Did I desire a son 
of my lord ? Did I not say, do not deceive me ? " he to 
hear the cry for help, to understand her grief, and to take 
swift measures to restore the child. 

The results of her errand to Elisha begin now to appear. 
The man of God is impatient of delay, so deep is personal 
interest and feeling for mourner and child. Had she not 
earned his fast friendship by her greatness of character as 
wife, mother, woman ? And had not the stern and earnest 
prophet found many an hour of tender delight in the fas- 
cinating fellowship of her little boy ? Elisha had the gen- 
tleness of the great and strong. " The rock which on its 
seaward side stands abrupt, perpendicular, and bare, ready 



Lesson IX.] THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. 87 

to meet and repel all the assaults of the ocean, does on its 
landward side hold out its arms to the soil, and carries on 
its bosom the soft moss, the beautiful lichen, or the bloom- 
ing flower." So the prophet of God who with coarse garb 
and shaggy visage stands before kings to rebuke them, finds 
that a little child has the master-key of trust, love, and 
wonder that opens his heart and leads him out. Thus it 
was doubtless the over-haste of love, and one of its mistakes, 
that prompted the despatching of Gehazi with the prophet's 
staff, and the nervous command to shun the elaborated Eastern 
salutation, too tedious for the man that must make haste. But 
the mother was not deceived. She did not hasten with the 
good staff and the bad man. She tarried with the good man 
without a staff, crying : "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul 
liveth, I will not leave thee." 

There is nothing so clairvoyant as that mood which the 
strain of trouble brings to a woman. She knows " what is in 
man " then, and her word and act are prophetic. Here it pro- 
phesied Gehazi's failure. The good man is the life-giving staff, 
and the bad man has only a stick, — is only a stick in the busi- 
ness of bringing the dead to life. In the unerring instinct of 
the Shunammite there is prophecy of Gehazi's perfidy in the 
matter of Naaman's release from leprosy and his own bondage 
to it, and in her unwavering faith in the power over death of 
the man of God there is prophecy of life from death. 

Here is a result that is not local, but universal ; a truth 
vindicated by the faith of the woman that needs vindica- 
tion again and again. I mean the truth that goodness alone 
is power. She had that written upon her soul, and kept 
her eyes upon the writing. The staff with its miraculous 
history was nothing, separate from the good man's hand. 
The mantle of the prophet of God enfolding the wrong man 
would have been nothing. She was wonderfully clear in her 
practical theology. The line from her need to God's help 



88 THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. [First Quarter. 

was faith's line, straight to God through the good man. She 
was not confused about goodness and power, keeping them 
apart or making them exclude one another. 

We do well to sit at her feet here. It is the way out of 
death to life. Do we not often use the word " good " as a 
reproach, or as a synonyme of incapacity or weakness ? Is 
not the man whom we characterize as " merely good " re- 
garded as more dead than alive ? Are we really mistaken, 
and is he not only alive but life-giving ? Men of ability, 
shrewdness, cleverness, men who " get there," are covered 
with the modern medals of honor. Gehazi "got there" be- 
fore Elisha ; but Elisha was sorely needed when he arrived. 
Gehazi was abler in finance, ^shrewder at a bargain, more 
clever in shifting for himself, very supple in getting around. 
But there was more power in Elisha' s little finger than in 
Gehazi's legs, loins, arms, and wits. Somehow, with all his 
ability, Gehazi, like many a modern, seemed rapidly striding 
to leprosy. And that is not power : it is death. 

Goodness alone is power still. You cannot tell how 
much Elisha can lift until you know the secret of his 
strength. When you have understood his God, you will 
understand the man of God. Then you will come to some 
knowledge of those great currents that may be set in motion 
in the air and in the earth, in the coincidence of the forces 
of matter, mind, and spirit. The right hand is stronger 
than the wrong hand yet ; and the right heart is nearer 
to the endless secrets of the universe than the wrong heart, 
and knows more about the power of the seen over the unseen, 
and of the unseen over the seen. We must not talk about 
the impossible when the bad man has failed ; for the man 
of God may be hastening to the task, and he is going to 
succeed according to the measure of his godlikeness. A 
prophet will have a prophet's reward, and a righteous man 
will have a righteous man's. Wait for Elisha after Gehazi. 



Lesson IX.] THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. 89 

Goodness is power? Yes. What is its power? We shall 
see. The man of God has gone into the chamber of death, 
and the door is shut. No one questions the Tightness of that. 
Too high and holy a transaction is this for parade or wit- 
nesses. " And when thou hast entered into thy closet, thou 
shalt shut thy door, and pray to thy Father which is in secret." 
The man of God had long learned that condition of power. 
What of the mother now ? Had not hope already become 
more daring ? The little chamber where she had laid her 
dead boy seemed less the abode of death since the good man 
had entered it upon business holy and merciful. The door 
was shut ; but she knew what was doing within, and she be- 
lieved. It was not Jesus that was there, to whom the dead 
seemed within such easy call. But the power was the same. 
In the house of death one was a servant, the other a Son. 
Jesus spake, and it was done ; the son of the widow, the 
daughter of Jairus, the brother of Mary, lived again at his 
word. But the servant must strive unto exhaustion. He 
seems not so near the living Father. The God-man com- 
mands ; the man of God wrestles like Jacob and must prevail 
through faith and work. Flesh touches flesh, eye looks into 
eye, mouth breathes into mouth, hands clasp hands. Seven 
times between his strong crying unto God as he paces the 
chamber, does he labor thus to impart his own life to the dead 
boy. At last, by the strenuousness of love and the violence 
of tears, the kingdom of heaven is taken. The child lives ; 
and the mother clasps the prophet's feet before she embraces 
her living child. With such a woman gratitude for love's 
luxury must precede its enjoyment. Then " she took up her 
son and went out." 

What is the power of goodness ? It saves from death, 
and gives life to the dead. This truth deepened, broadened, 
made as comprehensive as life itself, is the crowning result 
of the Shunammite's history. 



90 THE SHUXAMMITE'S SON. [First Quarter. 

Narrow the lesson down to the mere resuscitation of a 
child by the prophet, and you get the magic wand, but lose 
the divine power that wielded it. " The prophets of the 
olden time were no mesmerizers, but servants of the living 
God, who ' stood before him,' and whose business it was to 
bear witness of him in word and deed." They were men 
of God, joined to him. The goodness of God flowed 
into them and through them ; it was a power that saved 
from death and that gave life. Death comes and stays 
when that power is wanting. It is the rule of all com- 
mon life to-day. In this sense the Shuuammite was a mod- 
ern, and we are Shunammites. Her faith in the power of 
goodness was not a spasm into which she was thrown by 
calamity. We do not get into real • life and out of almost 
unconscious death by a spasm. That would be a miracle 
indeed, and would have to be wrought often, we are so 
blind, and learn so slowly. 

Did the high philosophy of life that you know, if you 
have tasted death and been made teachable, come to you 
by that swift method ? Or has it been gradually saturating 
your patient soul as life has worn, tossed, and strained you, 
and made you old ? How slowly opens the inner eye that 
sees the thousand-handed death which is ever clutching at 
you ! In all the waste of mind and spirit ; in all the decep- 
tions that sin mixes with self-sacrifice, philanthropy, and 
religion ; in all the ghastly masquerade of self -righteousness ; 
in all the flattery of emasculated piety, — you did not know 
how much death there was, and that the living could be 
so dead without the life of God. You did not know that 
the life of God measured its power in you by your own 
passion for it. But you have been learning. You began like 
the Shunammite. 

One day a prophet passed your door with face like unto 
the Son of Man's. Your heart opened to his as you gave 



Lesson IX] THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. 91 

him hospitality. You perceived that he was holy, bade him 
abide, and made room for his abiding. The day that your 
little child died upon your knees, or that other day that hus- 
band, wife, substance, health, or hope, left you, and woe's 
sharp hands tore you, you knew where power was. You 
knew whom you believed. No signs of power deceived 
you. You hurried by them, and clasping His feet you cried : 
" 1 will not leave thee : thou hast been my help ; leave me 
not, neither forsake me, thou God of my salvation." And he 
said, " I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might 
have it more abundantly." And girded with that more abun- 
dant life, you arose and went your way. 



iLrsson X. sparcl) 8. 



NAAMAN HEALED. 

2 Kings v: 1-lj.. 
By Rev. GEORGE S. GOODSPEED, New Haven, Conn. 

NOWHERE else in the whole Bible do great things 
and small things, judged from the human point of 
view, crowd so persistently and closely together as in this 
narrative about Naaman. It is a perpetual display of strik- 
ing contrasts, wherein the little things of God's choosing 
overtop, beat back, and cast down the mighty things of this 
world. 

1. The great man. As the world rates men, Naaman was 
great. He was next in power after the king. He was the 
greatest soldier in the kingdom. He must have honored 
that position, too, for the record tells us that he was the 
saviour of Syria. It appears that he had, in one of the great 
periodical raids of the Assyrian kings, taken the field against 
the invaders and driven them back. The king esteemed 
and trusted him. Between him and his sovereign there was 
none of that suspicion or that fear of rivalry or of treach- 
ery which, as in the case of Justinian and Belisarius, have 
so often marked the relations of monarchs with their suc- 
cessful generals. Yet Naaman, noble in presence and mighty 
in valor, a man above reproach in the sight of king and peo- 
ple, with all his gifts, graces, and renown, had one other dis- 
tinguishing characteristic. It was a slight one, which perhaps 



Lesson X] NAAMAN HEALED. 93 

few besides himself knew, well as he knew it, — it was a 
little spot of leprosy. 

You are not to suppose that leprosy had covered his person, 
or was such as to keep him from active life or association with 
his fellows. The leprosy of the Bible has little in com- 
mon with those horrible forms of disease which appear in 
the so-called lepers of to-day, — that, for instance, of the 
poor victims at Molokai. It was only a little spot of plague 
that troubled Naaman ; but the disgrace and mortification of 
being called a leper made his life miserable, in spite of all its 
gratifications of pleasure and ambition. 

In the field, at the head of his troops, his brand-mark might 
be well-nigh forgotten ; but on court-days, when the people 
shouted and the courtiers bowed as the king, on his general's 
arm, passed by to the throne, we can imagine how the hot 
Hush swept over the great man's face as he detected the whis- 
pered comment of the people, or felt the eyes of the crowd 
fixed on that reddish patch of his cheek, where the word 
"leper" already stood out, as though written in letters of 
fire. Naaman the great was cursed by his little blotch of 
leprosy. 

In this he represents many a person who has lived since 
his day, — people to be envied in all respects save one, 
who would be supremely happy were some one thing the 
reverse of what it is ; almost on the top of the ladder, whom 
a trifle holds back from the final step. But the petty lack 
makes them profoundly wretched. 

" Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! 
And the little less, and what worlds away ! " 

So they moan, with the poet, over the absence of what would 
make their cup overflow, or the presence of what taints it. 
Sometimes the curse is a soaring ambition coupled with phys- 
ical defect which renders the man incapable or ridiculous. 



94 NAAMAX HEALED. [First Quarter. 

.Sometimes keen wit and broad culture are yoked with a 
stammering tongue or an infirm temper. Sometimes with 
proud lineage goes the loosened strand in the brain, or with 
vast wealth the ghost of family discord. Such cases are 
legion, — nay, do not all of us ache with some plague-spot, in 
whatever mars our happiness or humbles our pride ? Even 
humanity itself, with its immense strivings and marvellous 
achievements, has its poison-drop of sin coursing through its 
veins and palsying its best life. 

2. Hie great lady. But Naaman was not alone in the 
misfortune that darkened his heart and home. One of the 
bitter things about this spot of leprosy was that it bred 
sorrow in another heart than that of its primary victim. 
When we read of Naaman's wife we inevitably expect to find 
her too in the atmosphere of grief. She shares his honors, 
but she shares his trials as well. Her womanly sympathy 
makes hers all Naaman's woe and shame over his badge of 
disgrace. Alas ! her sympathy cannot cure, her love cannot 
heal. Daughter of a house of princes, accustomed to rule, 
she has no power to make that spot depart. Beautiful with 
the high-born beauty of Syrian nobility, she cannot charm it 
away. Great lady, — what is all her greatness worth while 
that canker is gnawing into the heart of him whom she loves, 
and for whom she would give her life ? Linked to his suf- 
fering, she is yet powerless to alleviate it. If he is a leper, 
she is the wife of a leper. Miserable trio, — great captain, 
great lady, and a spot of leprosy ! 

God has a gleam of light for these suffering ones, to fall 
when hope has faded from their hearts and misery crowned 
their brows. But how strangely it comes ! The closed door 
opens, and behold the taper uplifted in the hand of a little 
captive serving-maid from the land of Israel ! 

"Would God my lord were with the prophet that is 
in Samaria ! then would he recover him of his leprosy." 



Lesson X] NAAMAN HEALED. 95 

So spoke the child, and cheered the desponding hearts of her 
exalted master and mistress. Her sympathy for them over- 
leapt the bounds that national hatred and personal wrong 
had built high about it. In sight of their suffering, the 
maiden's heart cannot hate them. Would that all of us 
longer kept the tender, commiserating heart of youth amid 
the rivalries and selfishness of this hard world ! The scene 
reveals what the ministry of a child may accomplish. It also 
reveals the power of simple and apparently trifling forces to 
direct the course of human events. How strange that in 
God's providence the slave girl should have the key to the 
door which master and mistress had in vain tried to unlock ! 
Let no one call his sphere narrow or his work fruitless. Any 
moment may bring such a turn in affairs that the Lord may 
use us in conserving the greatest and most precious interests 
of humanity. The bird's careless song, the wind's swift 
sweep, the lily's bloom, the child's chance word, — God em- 
ploys them all in the great work of salvation, and he will 
use us if we are in the path where he would have us walk. 
The great man's little spot, which gave him so much unhappi- 
ness, he was put in a way to remove by the little word of a 
little girl. 

3. The great kings. The lord and lady of course eagerly 
seize this crumb of comfort. They consult their king. Naa- 
man is despatched with all haste to the land of Israel, bear- 
ing a letter to its king. Monarchs take up the affair, but 
they handle it most awkwardly. He of Damascus sends 
away the patient, and shifts upon the other the responsibility 
for his cure. The king of Israel must needs receive the suf- 
ferer with due honor, but is filled with consternation at the 
accompanying message. Does his royal brother think him a 
god, to control the forces of Nature ? He suspects a plot. 
The embassy and request is but a ruse to fasten a quarrel 
upon him. Alas for Naaman ! his cure is farther off than 



96 NAAMAN HEALED. [First Quarter. 

ever ; it is to no purpose that he has exposed his shame, 
and has brought on an international complication besides. 

What a picture of great people trying to put things to 
rights ! " The kings of the earth set themselves, and the 
rulers take counsel together." Boyal correspondence, royal 
processions, royal presents passing hands ; yet the spot of 
leprosy is still there, and besides, a cloud of war on the 
horizon, threatening soon to burst if the situation does not 
change. How true to history and human experience is all 
this ! How it tallies with the interminable succession of 
royal quarrels and royal pacifications on the part of those 
kings and kinglets who would fain manage the world ! 

But the situation does change. Though the king of the 
North has forgotten to mention the physician's name, and it 
does not occur to his brother in the South to turn to the true 
source of power, healing for Naaman is at hand. For there 
is a prophet in Israel, — a man who has in his soul a sense 
of God's power, and who can speak with a voice of authority 
overriding that of king and captain. 

The central point of the whole story lies here. Its chief 
purpose is to exalt the prophet, to show that when kings 
failed, prophets succeeded ; that upon these laymen of God's 
appointment the magnates of the earth must lean in the most 
desperate crises of their worldly affairs. Tt was the glory of 
the prophets of Israel, and it is the glory of the prophetic 
office wherever exercised, boldly to stand athwart currents 
of evil in human affairs, and to rip up the fixed order of 
vicious thought and habit into which society fossilizes, start- 
ling people into attention to the words of everlasting life. 

Eemember, it is a layman who now seizes the direction of 
this case. The fact is typical. God still has such work for 
his laymen, — work which, as we are just beginning to realize, 
can best be done by laymen, provided they have the old 
prophetic spirit. The man who has best solved many 



Lesson X] • NAAMAN HEALED. 97 

modern religious problems is a layman with the prophetic 
spirit, — I mean D. L. Moody. May God send us more 
such, setting aside king and priest, if need be ! — men who 
with consciousness of a God-given authority shall say touch- 
ing the sinner whom a regular ministry cannot bring to 
Christ, " Why rend ye your garments in despair ? Send him 
hither to me." 

4. The great expectation, Naaman, with all the splendor 
of his train,' comes into the presence of the prophet. He has 
himself revealed to us what his thoughts were as he jour- 
neyed. Everything is uncertain as yet, though the prophet's 
clear message has inspired hope. He begins to lay out the 
probable procedure in advance. The prophet, he thinks, will 
do thus and thus. On what does he build this air-castle of 
expectation ? On his reputation, position, abilities, achieve- 
ments, — on anything but the one fact which he accounted 
so insignificant. Was he not well known throughout the land 
as a man of rank ? Even Israel is but too well aware of his 
exploits. He is a statesman as well as a valorous and skilful 
warrior. These facts, he imagines, must surely determine the 
prophet's action and bearing toward him. How strange that 
in all this dreaming the great captain forgets the substance 
of his errand, the very object of his journey, — the removal of 
his leprosy ! 

Forecasts do not necessarily become facts. The colors 
with which we paint our air castles are not always fast 
colors, and the castles often have to be rebuilt. Short, 
sharp, unceremonious, was the message which met Naaman 
at the prophet's door. "Go and wash in Jordan seven 
times," — message delivered to the proud noble at the mouth 
of a servant, — "and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and 
thou shalt be clean." 

5. Tlie great rage. Judged by the canons of Eastern 
politeness, the prophet in his treatment of Naaman was 

7 



98 NAAMAN HEALED. . [F IR st Quarter. 

outrageously discourteous. "We are not concerned to find ex- 
cuses for hini ; but it must be remembered that he now had 
a notable opportunity to humble an old enemy of his nation. 
Who knows whether the little maid, the captive in the Syrian 
household, who told them of the prophet, had not been dear 
to him ? He may well have been irritated at the pomp and 
show with which this noble sought him. No doubt the 
prophet knew the man's arrogant temper and haughty spirit. 
It was with a kind of grim humor that he sent down his 
brief message, so lacking in civility. He was not going to 
show any sympathy for the proud courtier. Let him wash 
and be healed if he would ; if not, what did Elisha care ? 

Such a bearing on his part had its natural effect. The re- 
versal of Naaman's expectations, with so scant politeness, 
fired him into a rage. He, too, was in part excusable. He 
had been grossly insulted by a man of the nation whose armies 
he had defeated in battle. Yet it was foolish that, resenting 
the manner in which the prescription was given him, he was 
led by his rage to resent the prescription itself. Bathe in 
this miserable stream, so foul as compared with the pure 
rivers of his native land ! He would remain a leper first. 

Naaman appears well beside that young man in the Gos- 
pels who went away from Christ " sorrowful," afraid to 
give up his wealth. But while the sorrow of the one was 
pitiable, the rage of the other was ridiculous, particularly in 
a leper. 

Here appears another of the strange contrasts of which we 
spoke. Over against the mighty lord stands the insignificant 
servant. To his proud master's great rage he opposes an un- 
ostentatious word of common-sense. The slave instructs the 
master. At the risk of his head he confronts the wrathful 
captain, and with great shrewdness says in effect, " Father, 
thou mightest have found it much harder to be cured. The 
prophet simply makes the way easy for thee." The sugges- 



Lesson X.] NAAMAN HEALED. 99 

tion may have been sophistical, and was certainly not what 
Elisha intended. But it resulted well, pricking the bubble 
of Naaman's anger and recalling him to his senses. He now 
sees things in a true light. He came to be cured, not to be 
petted. He came not as a nobleman, but as a sufferer ; not 
as a prince, but as a patient. 

friend, it never pays to ignore facts ! Be it pride or be 
it anger that veils the eyes, the veil does not change what is. 
Your leprosy of sin is a fact as truly as was Naaman's 
leprosy. You may forget it, you may deny it ; but you must 
reckon with the fact at last, — nay, at once, for as long as 
sin goes unrepented, life is upon a low plane : you cannot 
walk with God. Nas man's anger led him for the instant 
to forget his leprosy, but did not remove it. The red patch 
grew wider and wider; deeper, hour by hour, -did the filthy 
virus work. Will the affronted warrior in his pride fix 
forever his leprosy in his, life ? And wilt thou, friend, 
in thy obstinacy and anger, make an eternal compact with 
sin ? 

6. The great submission. Thanks to the wise words of 
his servant, Naaman betakes himself to the Jordan and car- 
ries out the prophet's injunction. It was a little thing, 
yet the result that followed was great. "His flesh came 
again like unto the flesh of a little child." Better than that, 
and before it, his heart had become like the heart of a little 
child. He had entered, through that narrow door, which is 
nevertheless as wide as the world, into the kingdom of God, 
whither any may come who lift up hands of trustful obe- 
dience unto the Father of all flesh, and perform without 
flinching the Father's will. Will ye not listen, victims of 
sinful pride and worldly disappointment, to the word of the 
servant ? Yield yourselves to God's better way, find satis- 
fied the deepest desires of your heart, and healed its grievous 
woe, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 



100 NAAMAN HEALED. [First Quarter. 

The Naaman story suggests two or three reflections. 

The one thing which made Naaman miserable was the 
means to his largest advance in prosperity and fame. But 
for that leprous spot we should never have heard of him. 
That it was which brought him into the path of God's prov- 
idence, where in God's light he lives and shines to his own 
honor and our blessing. Chief captain, favorite of the king, 
idol of the people and the army, — he thought those dis- 
tinctions his assurance of immortality. Instead, his defect, 
and that alone, made him the child of story. It is often thus. 
The defect, the oft- lamented weakness of body or of temper, 
God constitutes the path to those honors which all the man's 
graces and talents could never win. Even sin, that deadly 
blight and weight upon humanity, coming whence or how we 
do not know, weakening, degrading, and threatening its every 
victim, God overrules to his glory, and may overrule to the 
everlasting weal of the sinner himself. Without it, the ex- 
ceeding richness of God's grace as manifest in forgiveness 
could not have been known. 

Neither Elisha's treatment of Naaman nor his prescription 
for him is an example for others. Both reveal the spirit of 
the Old Testament rather than that of the New. For most 
religious teachers Elisha's method would be madness. It had 
in it much of the earthly, and not enough of the heavenly. 
" Believe or be damned " is not the style of Christ's preach- 
ing. Paul beseeches "by the meekness and gentleness of 
Christ." Yet Elisha acted wisely. He knew his man, and 
aimed his blow accordingly. There are doubtless people to- 
day who need to be treated thus. If you have such to deal 
with, let your blow be swift, sure, and hard, like that crush- 
ing message of the prophet. But remember that for the one 
rebuff given to the Syro-Phcenician woman when our Lord 
was in much the same position as Elisha, his ministry shows 
innumerable rejoinders of tender, sympathetic helpfulness. 



Lesson X.] NAAMAN HEALED. 101 

What would Elisha's curtness have accomplished, apart from 
the exhortation of the great man's slave ? Bough handling 
converted Naaman ; sympathy and love made of Saint John 
the glory of the Church. The latter qualities win the most 
universally ; they are Christ's weapons. 

Take a final look at these strange contrasts. The Syrian 
lord is also a leper ; the great lady learns from the little maid ; 
the prophet rescues from perplexity the disconcerted king ; 
the noble receives orders from the layman ; the enraged 
courtier is brought back to reason by the servant ; and the 
proud and experienced captain of Syria's armies comes to 
have the flesh and the heart of a little child. Shall we not 
in all this learn God's way ? Let such facts teach us rightly 
to estimate life and life's forces, — to see them from God's 
point of view. May they help bring us to Jesus, so meek 
and lowly, so despised by the world, enabling us to under- 
stand the offence and the glory of his cross ! 



iUstfon XL $$m\) 15. 



GEHAZI PUOTSHED. 

2 Kings v: 15-27. 
By Rev. B. A. GREENE, Lynn, Mass. 

r "PHIS whole chapter, like a branch of a thrifty vine, is 
■** laden with the choicest fruit. We have already in the 
first half seen how position and misfortune may be joined 
hand in hand, illustrating the fact that human life is condi- 
tioned ; that there will always be something to make it 
incomplete, — if not leprosy, another cause just as real and 
disturbing. 

Fortunate for Naaman that the little Israelitess lived in his 
home ; fortunate for him that among his servants were those 
wiser than himself, who dissuaded him at the crisis from go- 
ing back in a fit of anger, with his leprosy still upon him. 
For as we behold him at the beginning of our lesson to-day, 
we see that his flesh has come again like the flesh of a little 
child. He is clean. His deep, deep longing, " Oh, if I could 
only have full health again ! " is completely realized. Let us 
now study some of the lessons which immediately follow 
the healing. They are to be found in three clusters, growing 
out of three relationships, which may be marked as follows : 
(1) Naaman and Elisha; (2) Gehazi and Naaman ; (3) Elisha 
and Gehazi. 

I. NAAMAN AND ELISHA. 

In this cluster, consider — 

1. The evidential value of experience. "Now I know." 
Naaman had heard of the Jehovah of Israel, of the wonder- 



Lesson XI.] GEHAZI PUNISHED. 103 

ful deeds wrought by him ; but were not the reports similar 
to those about other gods ? To him they were. And when 
he came to Elisha's house he expected to find a prophet 
like those he had seen before. He therefore came prepared 
to win favor in the usual way, by giving costly presents. 
He was expecting to be received with the distinguished 
attention becoming one in his station. Failing to get this, 
his prejudices were aroused. Whereas before he may have 
regarded the Israelites' God as one among many, now he 
looks upon him rather with disdain. At last, in response 
to the urgent entreaty of his servants, he is won over. He 
submits to what he regards humiliating conditions, and in 
consequence is perfectly healed. What shall he say in that 
transcendently happy moment ? He knows that the waters 
of the Jordan have not done the work, nor a magical power 
in the prophet. The very conditions which aroused his 
prejudice at first now speak all the more convincingly of 
the Jehovah whom Elisha serves. He feels the glow of re- 
stored health ; he beholds it in the changed color of his 
flesh. His whole being thrills with the transformation, and 
as he stands there in the presence of all his attendants and 
before Elisha, he says, "Now I know that there is no God in 
all the earth but in Israel." He had unmistakable evidence 
that moment in his life, — the very best of evidence, living, 
conscious, blessed in its effects. It was that which the blind 
man healed by our Saviour had when he replied to the critics 
about him. " One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I 
see. He hath opened my eyes. A marvellous thing ! If 
this man were not of God, he could do nothing." 

Knowing God through experience : evidence in one's self : 
that is not only possible, but a way to conviction which 
Scripture plainly intimates as easy to all. " Will to do his 
will, and ye shall know the teaching ; " " Humble yourselves 
in the sight of God, and he shall lift you up" into blessed 



104 GEHAZI PUNISHED. [First Quarter, 

companionship of spirit with him. And just as of old he com- 
manded the light to shine out of darkness, so into the submis- 
sive heart he pours " the light of the knowledge of the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Evidence is not confined 
to what the eye sees, the ear hears, the heart reasons. It is 
God's pleasure to reveal himself in the soul directly. Through 
submission Naaman came to know assuredly that there was 
a God in Israel. Acting upon the testimony of others, led 
the way to unmistakable evidence in his own consciousness. 
Only in that way can men to-day come to a satisfying knowl- 
edge of Jehovah. 

2. The promptings of gratitude. The very first words after 
the account of Naaman's cleansing are these : " And he re- 
turned to the man of God." He did not go away silently, 
selfishly to his own land. It was in his heart to take his 
whole company back to Elisha's house, and in their presence 
acknowledge the great blessing which he had received. Not 
far from this very spot, in a later century, ten lepers were 
cleansed by our Lord, when, we read, only one returned to give 
glory to God. That one is commended, and visited with still 
further and richer blessing. Naaman is like that one. He 
not only makes acknowledgment in words, he wishes to ex- 
press his thankfulness in a more substantial way. " I pray 
thee take a present of thy servant." Elisha is intent upon 
still keeping up a distinction between himself and other 
prophets. He wants Naaman to be confirmed in his esti- 
mate of the Jehovah he serves. He therefore refuses abso- 
lutely to take a present, though urged and urged to do so. 
Naaman's gratitude, so genuine, strong, urgent, shows at 
once the thoroughness of his cure and the nobility of his 
character. 

It is an example for us in view of our cleansing from the 
leprosy of sin. We should not only have gratitude in the 
heart, but as well thankfulness on the lips, and persistently 



Lesson XI.] GEHAZI PUNISHED. 105 

endeavor to show in all proper ways that we thoroughly 
appreciate the glorious blessing. 

3. A faith joyous, but still groping for light. It is a 
moment of exhilaration. Joy over the wonder wrought 
moulds the expression of Naanian's faith. The faith is 
simple, child-like: "No God in all the earth but in Israel." 
" Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor 
sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord." In these state- 
ments is revealed first of all faith in Jehovah, and then not 
merely a recognition of him as supreme over all other gods, 
but an acknowledgment of him as excluding all other gods. 
Naaman then and there renounced polytheism. No stronger 
utterance to this effect could be made. 

Yet he does not seem to be altogether disentangled from 
his old heathen notions. His spiritual vision waits to be per- 
fectly clarified, his new faith still struggling with old beliefs. 
He appears to locate Jehovah in Palestine : " No God in all 
the earth but in Israel." Further, while he cherishes the fixed 
purpose in his heart to worship Jehovah only, he seems to 
deem it necessary to carry away with him some of Israel's soil, 
with which to make an acceptable altar of sacrifice. He more- 
over thinks the only course left him is to return home, and 
not only to continue living in his own land, but to keep close 
still to his royal master, assisting him even in his worship in 
the house of Eimmon. He feels the incongruity of this, and 
asks in it the pardon of Jehovah. His religious ideas are 
cloudy, though clearing. There is here no logical analysis of 
feelings or philosophical treatment of motives. The writer 
gives us a word-picture of life as it presented itself in the con- 
crete. It shows a mixture of elements strange and contradic- 
tory ; but we find in the actual to-day precisely the same. 

One thing, however, is. patent, — the Syrian captain had 
faith in Jehovah, and a corresponding purpose of heart, sin- 
cere and strong. Groping, he was groping toward the light- 



106 GEHAZI PUNISHED. [Eirst Quarter. 

Like the man whom Christ was healing, he might have said : 
"I see men as trees walking." What he needed was the 
after-touch of divine power, as had that restored blind man 
mentioned in Mark. Jesus " put his hands again upon his 
eyes and made him look up, and he saw every man clearly." 
It was such an after- touch of divine power to which Elisha 
committed Naaman in those parting words, " Go in peace." 
In them he neither approves nor disapproves of the course 
which Naaman had marked out. As Dr. Stearns puts it, 
'•' The miracle was to be a preacher to the Syrians that there 
was no God like Jehovah ; the special teaching to the person 
being in the prophet's mind a minor matter to be found out 
by the inner working of the Divine Spirit." 

What men supremely need is genuine faith. We want to 
be sure of the great central fact of the divine life energizing 
in our human life. Then there may be a wide margin for 
the exercise of liberty in specific acts, as regulated by an 
enlightened conscience. A " God bless you " to a new 
convert, with a generous trust in the God who has already 
begun in him the good work, is wiser help than minute 
and exacting detail in prescribing his conduct. Healthy 
spiritual life cannot be run in moulds of our manipulation. 
Its fashion must come from within and from above. It is 
born of God, not made by man. 

II. GEHAZI AND NAAMAN. 

It is a pity that we are compelled to introduce such a 
character as that of Gehazi before Naaman gets out of the 
limits of Palestine. Why is it that when some are entering 
into light and blessing, others already in that enjoyment seem 
insanely bent on sacrificing it ? Why do so many foolishly 
make good the occasion of evil ? These questions are more 
easily asked than answered. The fact, however, remains, 
and we are to see how it manifests itself. 



Lesson XL] GEHAZI PUNISHED. 107 

1. How men argue themselves into sin. Gehazi reasoned : 
" This proud Syrian has received a very great blessing. 
Health is next to life itself. He could have got health no- 
where else on earth. He appreciated the great favor, and 
being rich, wanted to return silver and gold in payment. It 
is a shame that all this treasure should go back to Syria, 
turning the balance of trade against my nation. I will run 
after the captain and save some of it. Naaman wished to 
leave the whole in the land that gave him healing. I will 
get a portion; no one will suffer, no one shall be the wiser." 
So covetous Gehazi muses, ignoring and threatening to thwart 
the obvious and lofty purpose of his master in declining 
Naaman's treasure. 

Gehazi was like Achan, — he coveted ; he reached out his 
hand for that which he knew it would be a sin for himself 
and a damage to his country and its religion for him to have. 
He knew the meanness and the evil which his suggestion in- 
volved, and could not do the wrong until he had argued him- 
self into it. So it is ever. Wrong is wrong, and we feel this. 

" Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

When we are tempted to do a wrong thing from which we 
at first shrink, strong is our temptation to suggest reasons 
why we may possibly do it without criminality. Most of the 
defalcations which astonish the public probably originate in 
that way. At first there was no thought of the crime as even 
possible. " The money is not mine at all," the bank-clerk 
says, determined not to touch it except as a servant, for the 
advantage of those he serves. Time goes on, money mean- 
time his constant companion. Some evil day the suggestion 
comes to him : " This money is doing no one any good. 
More is always here than is called for. What harm if I 
invest a little of it in this speculation, sure to succeed? 



108 GEHAZI PUNISHED. [First Quarter. 

Having made a handsome profit, I will return all I took. 
No one will suffer, and 1 shall be greatly helped." 

That is the way men argue themselves into courses of 
action which turn out unrighteous and criminal. They 
allow the god of this world to tamper with their moral 
vision little by little. They come to see moral things awry, 
until by and by they call evil good, and good evil. The Devil 
reasoned with Eve, and that initial practice has been kept up 
ever since. No people go into sin admitting it to be sin and 
offering no excuse. Every sinner begins as Gehazi did, by 
allowing to work upon himself the bewildering influence of 
fallacious argument. 

" Oh, what authority and show of truth 
Can cunning sin cover itself withal ! " 

2. How one sin calls for another. It is not so easy to get 
this money which Naaman is willing to part with. He is 
even now quite a piece on his journey out of the country. 
What course shall be adopted ? The mind is always inven- 
tive when it feels the pressure of inordinate desire. This 
therefore is Gehazi's ingenious lie to Naaman when he over- 
takes him : " My master hath sent me, saying, Behold even 
now there be come to me from Mount Ephraim two young 
men of the sons of the prophets : give them, I pray thee, a 
talent of silver and two changes of raiment." Gehazi was 
going to be a capitalist. 

Sin never can get far in its career without the help of 
lying. It is the ever-necessary device. Unless the initial 
sin is abandoned, the call for falsehood becomes more and 
more imperative. He who commits himself to any course 
of deceit finds that the occasions for the exercise of his in- 
genuity continually increase. There is cross-questioning out- 
side the court-room. How strange it is that men will run 
all this hazard, knowing how awful and certain it is, aware, 



I.] GEHAZI PUNISHED. 109 

as they must be, that having taken the first step in the way 
of evil, they cannot but wax worse and worse ! 

With Naaman Gehazi succeeds admirably, as is often the 
case with sin at the start. Naaman said : " Take [not one but] 
two talents and two changes of raiment, and let my servants 
carry them home for you." He consents, but takes care that 
the servants are dismissed before they come into the prophet's 
neighborhood. He takes the pelf from them, deposits it in 
a secret place, and appears to think himself secure. His 
plan is apparently a complete success. The goods he cov- 
eted are in his possession. Naaman gave them to him with 
his own hand. He did not steal them. They are in his 
house, to be kept until he may see fit to use them. No one 
will know anything about it. How many, many times have 
other men done as Gehazi did, — succeeding in evil and think- 
ing themselves secure ! Never are they so. Let us see the 
outcome here. 

III. ELISHA AND GEHAZI. 

Gehazi is still servant, and he must meet his master. 
Success does not yet warrant an abrupt break in the old 
relations. He finds himself in the fast grip of circumstances. 
Temporary success, whether gained ill or righteously, never 
brings the life into complete freedom. We are always in a 
sense the children of circumstances. Heredity is no surer or 
more appreciable a force than environment. 

1. Consider how sin is made to disclose itself. When the 
servant stood by his master, " Elisha said unto him, Whence 
contest thou, Gehazi ? And he said, Thy servant went neither 
hither nor thither." Were we not right ? How frightfully 
prolific a first lie becomes ! 

Unfortunately for him, Gehazi is dealing with one who has 
more than ordinary vision. " Went not my heart with thee 
when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee ? " 



110 GEHAZI PUNISHED. [First Quarter. 

In the lightning-flash of that question the craven villain sees 
his wickedness exposed. How did he ever dream that he 
could be secure ? Did he not know that he was associated 
with a man of God, who had brought from death to life the 
Shunammite's son ? Nay, did not his guilty act join close 
upon yet another display of his master's superhuman power ? 
Sin had blinded him, as sin always blinds. Whatever inge- 
nuity he showed in his approach to Naaman was totally 
eclipsed by his folly in imagining that he could deceive 
Elisha. 

" Be sure your sin will find you out," my friend. We do 
not deal with Elishas, but we do deal with God. Elisha 
was simply a voice of God. Every age has its divine voices. 
So has every individual's environment. Sin may prosper at 
first, it may bring you home laden with double spoil ; but 
there awaits it the cross questioning of life's environment, 
some lightning-flash from the high arch of God's providence, 
which will inevitably reveal the leprosy of your soul. 

2. The punishment. " Is it time to receive money and to 
receive garments ?" Oh, how Gehazi's soul must have writhed 
under that question, spoken by one in the secret counsels of 
the Most High ! Jehovah will assure the Syrians that there 
is truly a prophet in Israel. Offered gifts are refused, that 
the teaching may the more thoroughly convince. Shall a 
servant obtrude with impunity his selfishness to thwart the 
divine endeavor ? Shall he be permitted to win lucre out of 
calamity, out of the most sacred experiences in life, and un- 
challenged to sin against Jehovah in the very blaze of the 
display of his power ? Nay, a prophet prevents, a prophet 
thunders God's anathema : " The leprosy of Naaman shall 
cleave unto thee and unto thy seed for ever. . . . And he 
went out from his presence a leper as white as snow." Be- 
yond the shame of his discovery and the terrible indignation 
of the prophet is the perpetual leprous brand of Jehovah's 



Lesson XI.] GEHAZI PUNISHED. Ill 

wrath. Miriam for seven days, Uzziah and Azariah for a 
lifetime, felt the weight of a divine curse upon them ; but 
Gehazi has the added misery of knowing that he has brought 
an abiding calamity into his home. 

Oh, the mystery of life ! Who can understand its inter- 
blendings of influence and responsibility ? Who can weigh 
in equitable balances its comparative privileges, opportu- 
nities, and dangers ? In the shadow of that threat as it falls 
on the man and the home, we stand with many a perplexing 
query. Baffled, we say to ourselves : " In due time at any 
rate it will be seen that the Judge of all the earth has been 
through the ages doing right." Meantime let our eyes be 
open to the fact that we individually have it in our power to 
draw others into the maelstrom of our suffering and sorrow, 
— nay, that the very nature of our life forces us to do this. 

Which would you rather be, — Naaman, generously grateful 
for his healing, of joyous faith, even though groping for the 
light, on his way home, with a prophet's benediction echoing 
in his soul ; or Gehazi, the once honored servant and com- 
panion of Elisha, arguing himself into and committing sin in 
the very blaze of the matchless display of God's compassion 
and power, and then going out from his master's presence 
white with leprosy, and knowing that the curse which he 
has brought upon himself he has entailed upon his children 
and his children's children ? 



ILestfon xii. tym\) 22. 



T 



ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. 

2 Kings vi: 8-18. 
By Prof. GEORGE R. HOVEY, Richmond, Va. 

HE lesson opens amid the dangers and suspense of 
guerrilla warfare settling over the land. Northern 
Israel is reaping the harvest of her past sowing. Having 
cut herself off from Jerusalem and allied herself with 
heathen nations, she had lost the intense patriotism and the 
pure religion which had their source in Zion. She surren- 
dered her power when she forgot her peculiar mission and 
the Almighty's abiding presence. United Israel had for- 
merly made Syria one of her provinces. Now that • province 
had become independent and powerful. Its garrison held 
Kamoth-gilead, the eastern fortress of Israel, its armies 
penetrated to her very capital, and Samaria would have 
fallen but for the interposition of God. Marauding com- 
panies seem to have roamed almost at will through the 
land. 

Under such circumstances Ben-hadad, king of Syria, in his 
secret chamber counsels where to send his bands. Spies re- 
port to him weakly defended places, or more probably places 
where the king of Israel alone or with small force is about 
to pass by. Thither he decides to send his troops. But 
in vain ; Jehoram, king of Israel, is warned. " Beware that 
thou pass not such a place." Not once or twice, but many 
times did he heed such warning, and sending to the place 
designated, find the host of Syria ready to attack him. 



Lesson XII.] ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. 113 

Ben-hadad at last became convinced that there was treach- 
ery among his servants. His only question was : Who is 
the traitor ? For by no other means can Jehoram learn my 
plans. False assumption ! And yet how many, like Ben- 
hadad, as if they had measured all forces, say : Only in this 
way can this be done ! — belittling Nature and God. And 
with how many, as with him, is the suspicion of evil in 
others only an indication of evil uppermost in their own 
minds ; for he had probably encouraged treachery in Israel. 
And how often do we find at last that such a suspicion is as 
great a misjudgment as it is an injustice ! Fortunately a 
servant, wiser than his master, was at hand to correct the 
mistake. 

It was a strange story which the servant told. There is 
no traitor, " my lord, king ; but Elisha, the prophet that 
is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou 
speakest in thy bedchamber." Here, as well as throughout 
this incident, an invisible power works for Elisha. Unseen, 
it is all-seeing. Darkness hideth not from it, but the night 
shineth as the day. It hears the secrets of the chamber ; it 
thwarts them ; it publishes them throughout Israel. No 
secret is safe. A guilty conscience may well be haunted 
with the dread that at any moment men may know and 
God must know its secret. 

The king of Syria saw that Jehoram could not be taken 
while Elisha remained free to reveal his plans. Against 
Elisha all his efforts must be directed. He had learned 
what was the vital point in the conflict, what would give 
him success in the great struggle of his life. But he had 
not learned the true character of his enemy. Did he im- 
agine that the God who could warn a king where the enemy 
lay in wait for him could not warn, the prophet where the 
same enemy purposed to seize him ? Or did he suppose that 
if the great leader of God's people should be taken away, the 



114 ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. [First Qcarter. 

God who had raised him up would be unable to raise up other 
leaders to take his place ? Thinking that the work of God 
depended on one man, he assailed Elisha. 

"We have now reached the main incident of the lesson, — 
the conflict between Elisha and Syria. The first point sug- 
gested by the preceding verses is the origin of the conflict. 
Without doubt here, as almost universally, war may be traced 
largely to that demon in man, selfishness. Perhaps in the 
form of ambition it led the king of Syria to attack Israel. 
For the greatness of a man in his sight was merely the great- 
ness of his possessions, even though obtained by oppression 
and violence. Perhaps revenge moved him. He could not 
forget that Israel by God's help had twice, in hill and valley, 
at Samaria and at Aphek, brought overwhelming defeat and 
disgrace upon him, and that he had been forced to appear 
before Ahab a suppliant for life. And now selfishness in the 
form of desire for vengeance would drive him to the bloody 
crime of war. This was the spirit of the times. But Ben- 
hadad was as far from the spirit of Christ, who suffered and 
taught his followers to suffer, as are those among us who 
would bring the curse of war to millions of homes in perhaps 
Europe or China, as well as their own land, rather than hum- 
ble themselves for peace. They would willingly suffer in- 
finitely more to save their pride than they could possibly 
suffer in manifesting the great, divine qualities of forbearance 
and humility. Christian sentiment about war ought to be 
Christlike. 

Elisha too had a part in bringing the assault upon himself. 
But why need he entangle himself in the war, especially 
when both sides were so unworthy ? Ben-hadad, an ungrate- 
ful, superstitious, idolatrous, probably licentious king, ruling 
a people steeped in vice ; Jehoram, better than Ahab his 
father, but walking in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Xebat, 
who made Israel to sin, worshipping the calves, and ruling a 



Lesson XII.] ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. 115 

people unfaithful to God. Would he not better shun the 
contamination of alliance with such men, and wash his hands 
of all participation in their sins, and sit apart in Dothan, 
watching and praying and waiting for worthy allies before 
engaging in the struggle ? Elisha thought differently. He 
may have reasoned : One side is doing good in the world, and 
fears God, though imperfectly ; the other promotes sin. God 
himself uses imperfect servants, and by that use slowly per- 
fects them ; none are perfect here. God would have me work 
heartily with those from whom there is most hope for his 
kingdom. I do not indorse the sins of my allies ; they know 
and shall know what I approve and what I condemn. Jeho- 
ram and Israel, however unworthy, are nevertheless God's 
servants, and with them is the hope of his kingdom ; I must 
help them. Whatever Elisha's thoughts, he joined heartily 
with the professed servants of God. He was as efficient as 
he was godly. He saved Israel from Syria, and afterwards 
led them to a purer worship. 

On the other hand, there are few more useless people than 
those who refuse to work with imperfect men. When a 
party or church or pastor or any fellow- worker has manifest 
failings, a small and narrow soul is likely to stand aloof ; an 
earnest, useful sOul, like Elisha's, to join heartily in the work. 
Refusal to co-operate is a last resort, to be adopted only 
when more can actually be accomplished for God by effort 
under other relations. 

But without any such reasoning Elisha would have been 
with Israel, for he was a patriot. He tenderly loved his coun- 
try, — not his country, right or wrong, but his country right, 
or to be made right ! He loved it enough to criticise and 
to help it, — to help it against Ben-hadad, and also against 
corruption and sin within. He loved it because he rightly 
believed it was the best, and might become unspeakably 
better. And now in America, together with world-wide love 



HQ ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. [First Quarter. 

and sympathy, we may have as reasonable a patriotism as 
Elisha ; for our country too, with all its faults, has in it 
brightest promise for the future, if the men of God give it 
their service. 

More broadly, Elisha would never have provoked Een-hadad 
had he "believed, with many, that his mission was fulfilled in 
keeping himself right, without interfering with others. Dan- 
gerous half-truth ! It is true that only by wise and persua- 
sive words may we interfere with the opinions of another, 
or with his personal acts that harm neither the bodies nor 
the souls of men. But when wickedness is fighting to ex- 
tend its sway over new victims, whether the battle to-day 
is against us or our neighbor, it is false to humanity to be 
silent. The roll of heroes and heroic saints would be short 
indeed without the names of those who have brought perse- 
cution and death upon themselves by assailing sin. Silence 
was safety, but Moses avenged oppression, and was exiled ; 
Elijah interfered with Ahab, and was hunted from the land ; 
the prophets denounced the sins of Israel, and were perse- 
cuted; John the Baptist rebuked Herodias' crime, and was 
beheaded ; and our Lord exposed the hypocrisy of the Jews, 
and was crucified. All these brought hostility against them- 
selves by themselves first attacking evil. They might have 
lived in peace, had they held their peace. And to-day that 
man is left in quiet who thinks and feels never so purely, 
and yet never proclaims his thoughts or uses his strength 
to overthrow evil. No public sentiment in school or else- 
where, no oath of secret society, no loyalty to party or 
country, — nothing has a right to seal a man's lips and bind 
him to a league with sin. A man, and especially a Christian, 
owes it to his country and his children, to right and to God, 
boldly to attack evil, even at the risk of unpopularity, loss, 
and suffering. Elisha by thwarting Ben-hadad brought the 
battle on himself. 



Lesson XII.] ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. 117 

Secondly, the narrative presents in sharp contrast the 
forces engaged. By night the horses and chariots and great 
host of Syria took their station on the hills about Dothan. 
There is no hint that Elisha foresaw their coming. With 
the knowledge of danger, he might have sought safety else- 
where, and lost the great lesson of the following events. 
Perhaps he needed to have his faith tried in time of real 
peril to himself. God had given him knowledge to help the 
king when in danger ; now he must exercise faith when he 
himself is in danger. Are not knowledge and strength 
given us chiefly for the benefit of others, and faith for our 
own benefit ? 

Whether Elisha foresaw this attack or not, his servant, 
probably one of the sons of the prophets who ministered to 
him as he had done to Elijah, knew nothing of it. In the 
early morning, when he arose, perhaps to prepare for a jour- 
ney to Samaria with his master, he saw the hills filled with 
the Syrians. They had all the equipments and troops that 
they could wish. Wrong often seems to have the resources 
to make her victory certain. Powerful selfish motives, 
money, numbers, public sentiment, and worldly wisdom are 
hers, and seem about to crush the right. And when the 
servant of Elisha saw the forces arrayed against him, he cried 
out in fear, "Alas, my master ! how shall we do ? " How 
common a cry from the servants of God ! how natural in 
the presence of the mighty powers with which we fight ! 
But how unworthy of sons of God ! How it shows that 
material things overshadow spiritual, that sight rules while 
faith is weak. A great dark cloud shuts the heavens out of 
sight. 

" Careless seems the great Avenger ; history's pages but record 
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word. 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne ! — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own." 



118 ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. [First Quarter. 

Lowell only echoes the thought of Elisha's answer to the 
cry of his servant : " Fear not, for they that be with us are 
more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and 
said : Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And 
the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw ; and, 
behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire 
round about Elisha." 

It was no sight of material forces. The horses and chariots 
of fire were merely a symbol of the invisible but real power 
of God. Their position round about Elisha, between him 
and his enemies, showed that this power was protecting the 
prophet. Throughout the narrative the same great truth is 
taught, that God unseen is yet present in power to help his 
people. The great lesson of the incident for every Christian 
is : " They that be with us are more than they that be with 
them." And this is the prayer to be offered for all : " I pray 
thee, open his eyes, that he may see." That sight of the in- 
visible is merely the Christian's faith. 

In this nineteenth century, material age though it is, the 
lesson of unseen forces has been taught as never before. 
Force is expected to be unseen, often undiscovered and inex- 
plicable. Steam is invisible so long as it retains its power. 
As old as the world, it is a modern discovery. Electricity 
unseen filled earth and air for all the centuries, but was 
never dreamed of. And now it circulates all about us, unob- 
served, but of unimaginable power. The worlds are held in 
space and directed in their courses by the unseen force of 
gravitation. With these forces unsuspected through the 
ages, what forces may there not still be unknown to us, as 
near and as mighty as the mightiest that we know ? And 
higher than these forces of Nature is the unseen mind of 
man. It makes the wilderness a garden, the block of marble 
a statue ; it tames the steam and electricity, and makes them 
do its bidding. In the moral kingdom also, unseen forces, 



Lesson XII.] ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. 119 

hidden motives and influences, unaccountable hopes and 
fears, determine the boundaries of nations, the fate of men, 
the progress of the kingdom of God. These forces, mighty 
and invisible, are yet ever present. Need we be surprised 
that the one truly Omnipotent Force in this world is ever 
present, and yet unseen ? Men deny it. But it is as true 
now as when John the Baptist spoke : " In the midst of you 
standeth one whom ye know not." The Lord of Life was 
in that crowd by Jordan. He has said: "I am the life." 
"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
Unseen, he, the greatest force in human life, stands at our 
side, more ready than the hosts about Elisha to give hope 
and joy and safety to him whose eyes are opened. Lord, 
open thou our eyes, that we may see ! And let the enemies 
of God fear, the doubting trust, and the faithful rejoice in 
victory ! 

The incident would be marred without consideration of the 
third point, ■ — the victory of the man of God. Encouraged 
at sight of the guardian host, Elisha and his servant seem to 
have gone down the hill on which Dothan stood, perhaps 
starting on their journey to Samaria. The enemy too came 
down from the surrounding hills to seize the prophet. But at 
his prayer God smote them with blindness, — such a blind- 
ness, the word indicates, as came upon the men of Sodom 
when they were so confused that they could not find the door 
of Lot's house ; perhaps such as was upon those whose eyes 
were holden when the Lord appeared to them after the resur- 
rection. In their helplessness they were led to Samaria ; 
there their eyes were opened, and they were fed, and sent 
home to tell of the mercy and power of the God of Israel. 

The victory taught Jehoram, as well as Elisha and his ser- 
vant, that God was almighty, and ever present to help. The 
frequent deliverances of the past had left Israel still half- 
hearted and half -believing. And yet God again, by fresh 



120 ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. [First Quarter, 

mercy, tried to woo them back to himself. His words to 
men are full of the same longing. " How shall I give thee 
up, Ephraim ? How shall I deliver thee, Israel ? " " Behold, 
I stand at the door and knock ! " " He is slow to anger ; " 
" he is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repentance." 

It taught the enemy the folly of fighting against God. 
But the lesson was only half learned. " The bands of Syria 
came no more into the land of Israel." Yet after a while 
the whole force of the kingdom attempted what the smaller 
bands had failed to do. But without success. " For the 
Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? 
And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it 
back ? " 

And for all, there was a lesson little in harmony with the 
age. Jehoram would kill the enemy in his power ; Elijah 
called down fire on the fifties sent against him. But our 
Lord rebuked his disciples when they would call down fire 
upon his enemies. For he " came not to destroy men's lives, 
but to save them." Elisha had a touch of the new spirit 
in those old times. He overcame evil with good. He con- 
quered to bless men, to destroy only prejudice and hatred. 
To lead captive men's opinions was better than to lead in 
triumph their chariots and horses ; to win a heart, better 
than to gain a corpse ! One is divine, the other is brutish. 
Our hardest battles with intemperance, superstition, corrup- 
tion, oppression, and every evil should enlighten and bless 
the sinner, not injure him. 

We have seen in this picture many traces of the teaching 
and the spirit of our Lord. The perfect picture given in his 
words and life contains the same lines, and differs only in 
details. He presents the same aggressive warfare against 
sin, the same unseen Helper all-powerful and ever-blessing, 
the same certain and gentle victory. This should be our 



Lesson XII.] ELISHA'S DEFENDERS. 121 

life. But in contrast with Elisha, we, like our Master, may 
reach victory through the path of reproach and suffering, 
and perhaps even death. God spare us ! Yet through such 
a path the victory in our souls, yea, and over the hearts of 
others, would doubtless be the greater. Oh, that we might be- 
lieve it ! More lastingly and deeply, though differently from 
Elisha, we shall conquer through the unseen, ever-present 
Christ, who strengthened us. 



THE SECOND QUARTER. 



LESSONS FROM KINGS AND PROPHETS, 

{Continued.) 



Lesson 

I. April 5. " Saved from Famine." By Rev. Professor T. Harwood 

Pattison, I). D. 
II. " 12. " The Good and Evil in Jehu." By Rev. Edward Jud- 
son, D. D. 

III. " 19. " Jouali sent to Nineveh." By Rev. W. O. Stearns. 

IV. " 25. " Nineveh brought to Repeutauce." By Rev. John H. 

Ma sox. 
V. May 3. " Israel often Reproved." By Rev. F. W. Bakeman, D. D. 
VI. " 10. " Israel's Overthrow Foretold." By Rev. D. F. Estes. 
VII. " 17. " Sin the Cause of Sorrow." By Rev. Thomas D. An- 
derson. 
VIII. " 24. " Captivity of Israel." By Professor Ira M. Price, 
Ph.D. 
IX. " 31. " The Temple Repaired." By Rev. William W. Lax- 
drum, D. D. 
X. June 7. " Hezekiah, the Good King." By Rev. Thomas S. Bar- 
bour. 
XL " 14. " The Book of the Law Found." By Rev. George E. 

H.ORR. 

XII. " 21. " Captivity of Judah." By Professor Shailek Mathews. 



iLesson I. #prtl 5. 



SAVED FROM FAMINE. 

2 Kings vii : 1-16. 
By Eev. Prof. T. HARWOOD PATTISON, D.D., Rochester, N. Y. 

THE story of the lepers of Samaria must be read in 
connection with the previous chapter, and our present 
lesson must, if we are to do justice to its central truth, be 
carried on to the close of the chapter in which it is found. 

Two great calamities had befallen the land of Israel. Its 
capital was closely besieged by Ben-hadad, king of Syria, and 
no doubt in consequence of this, famine held the city in its 
pitiless and wasting grasp. The iron hand of the enemy 
clinched Samaria tight and fast, and was squeezing the life- 
blood out of its helpless body. So low had the inhabitants 
been brought that mothers were driven to eat their own 
children. It was this which roused the king, Jehoram, the 
son of Ahab, who in an outburst of fury cried, " God do so 
and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat 
shall stand on him this day." The same blindness which made 
his father Ahab charge on Elijah the national calamities for" 
which in fact he himself was responsible now showed itself 
in his yet weaker son. In some way or other Elisha was 
the cause of all the miseries which were coming thick upon 
Samaria. An executioner hurried to the prophet's house to 
carry out the foolish wish of Jehoram. Elisha, surrounded 
by the elders of the city, was ready for him, and be- 
fore he arrived bade them detain him at the door, adding, 



126 SAVED FROM FAMINE. [Second Quarter. 

"Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him?" It 
would seem as though, . perhaps in quick repentance of his 
hasty words, Jehoram was indeed following close on the 
heels of the executioner, and that as he reached the house, he 
cried in querulous rebellion against Jehovah, " Behold, this 
evil is of the Lord; why should I wait for the Lord any 
longer ? " He meant openly to throw off an allegiance which 
had never been other than nominal, and his words are proof 
how much of the spirit of his mother Jezebel now lived in her 
son. History seems to repeat itself here, only with one im- 
portant difference. Elijah the prophet had appeared suddenly 
before Ahab to foretell the long drought ; now Elisha, the 
successor of Elijah, received Jehoram, Ahab's son, with the 
prophecy that the famine was to be changed to plenty. " To- 
morrow about this time shall a measure of line flour be sold 
for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the 
gate of Samaria." Our lesson deals with the fulfilment of 
this prophecy, the incredulity of the favorite attendant of 
Jehoram, the visit of the starving lepers to the camp of the 
enemy, and the flight of the Syrians before the supernatural 
display of divine power. We will study it as illustrating 
the contrasted spirits of unbelief and faith, — unbelief as 
shown in the scoff of the noble, the panic of the Syrians, 
and the suspicious incredulity of king Jehoram ; faith as 
exhibited in its weakest form by the lepers, as a dawning 
hope by the king's servant, and as calm confidence by 
Elisba. 

I. Let us look, first, at three illustrations in this chapter, of 
the spirit of unbelief. There are many kinds of unbelief: 
these three are as common as any. 

1. Hearing Elisha's prophecy of plenty to come within 
twenty-four hours, a certain lord, an aide-de-camp or adju- 
tant in the service of Jehoram, so much his favorite that on 
his hand — as the king of Syria on Naaman's in a parallel 



Lesson I.] SAVED FROM FAMINE. 127 

case — the king leaned, " answered the man of God, and said, 
Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might 
this thing be ? " Here is the unbelief which sneers. Of all 
forms of unbelief it is the most shallow. This was a man 
who sat in the seat of the scornful. His words are akin to 
those of Pilate when he asked Jesus, " What is truth ? " or 
of Agrippa when he said to Paul, " With but little persua- 
sion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian." The poor 
man was a courtier, a hanger-on upon royalty, and he had 
the limited range of observation common to such officials. 
The days of miracles, he says, the days when manna was 
rained down every morning on the sleeping camp in the 
wilderness, are past, and God no longer makes windows in 
heaven. He meets the intense earnestness of Elisha with 
a jest. But he shall find that this is no joking matter. 
To him Elisha answers, " Behold, thou shalt see it with 
thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof." To see, but not to 
share. This is the punishment of frivolity when it dares to 
make sport of God's promises. We seem to find here a re- 
flection of the former picture when Israel came to the very 
borders of Canaan, but for their unbelief perished in the 
wilderness, and an anticipation of the parable of the rich 
man when " in hell he lifted up his eyes, and seeth Abraham 
afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." How the punishment 
was carried out in the case of this noble may be read in the 
last verse of our chapter. 

2. Turning to the host of Syrians beleaguering Samaria, 
we have the second kind of unbelief, — that which ignores 
and defies God. The Syrians ought to have felt some grati- 
tude for the way in which God, through his prophet Elisha, 
had not long before spared them from destruction. But 
unbelief knows no gratitude. So. within a short time Ben- 
hadad was back again, and Samaria lay at his mercy. Now 
see how this coarse and brutal spirit of unbelief, which 



128 SAVED FROM FAMINE. [Second Quarter. 

" laughs at heaven and hell and fate," is put to shame. " The 
Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of 
chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great 
host." They were struck with unreasonable fear, then seized 
with sudden panic. Fear and panic make the two-edged 
sword with which such unbelief is often slain. 

" There were they in great fear, where no fear was," means 
just this. If you will not fear God, you shall be afraid 
of man. If faith cannot have her rightful place, then 
superstition shall usurp her throne. Herod did not be- 
lieve in any resurrection, yet he cried out in terror when 
he heard of Jesus, " This is John the Baptist ; he is risen 
from the dead." The imagination does not surrender her 
hold on the mind of an unbeliever. There are many more 
tilings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the 
philosophy of atheism. To say " There is no God " no more 
abolishes God than does the ostrich by burying her head in 
the sand escape the pursuing huntsman. What the Syrians 
heard may have been thunder in the neighboring hills, or it 
may have been nothing more than a roaring in their ears ; but 
to their terrified fancy it was the tramp of horses and the roll 
of chariot-wheels. The Hittites were upon them from the 
north, and the Egyptians from the south, — mercenaries hired, 
so they believed, by the king of Israel, in whose capital at 
that very moment starving and maddened mothers were de- 
vouring their offspring ! Verily, the credulities of scepticism 
are only equalled by their ingenuity. One thinks of Elisha, 
calm and unmoved as the blade of the headsman flashes 
through the opening in his door, and the Psalmist's words 
take on a fresh significance : " Thou shalt not be afraid for 
the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, . . . 
because thou hast made the Lord thy habitation." 

3. King Jehoram exhibits the third sort of unbelief. 
When the news came to him of the panic-stricken Syrians 



Lesson I.] SAVED FROM FAMINE. 129 

and the deserted camp, he could not believe it. How should 
he ? The man who will not believe when he may, cannot 
believe when he should. So unbelief ever acts. It takes 
away the faculty of faith ; and when that faculty is needed, 
and summoned and searched for, it cannot be found. In its 
place is only a crooked interrogation-mark. " I will now 
show you," says the king, " what the Syrians have done 
to us. They know that we be hungry ; therefore are they 
gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, 
saying, When they come out of the city, we shall catch 
them alive, and get into the city." He knew all about it. 
He saw through those plans which had never been formed. 
What he did . not know was that there was a God who 
had taken this matter into his own hands, and that it 
was before his thunders that the Syrians were flying 
pell-mell towards the Jordan. This is an illustration of 
the unbelief which suspects. Faith is clear, unfaith is 
clouded. Faith says, " My times are in God's hand ; " un- 
faith says, " There is a lion in the path.". The one thing 
which perplexes, baffles, and outwits unbelief is the simple 
truth. Be sure there must be something hidden, there is 
a veiled purpose, this is a deep-laid scheme. On the other 
hand, there is in faith and in the men who embody it a 
simplicity which the knowing ones of this world are tempted 
to call childish. The critic saw occult meanings in Turner's 
pictures which the painter himself never saw, and, what is 
more, did not believe were in them. Socrates, Cromwell, 
Lincoln — what transparently innocent things they said ! 
It takes us a long time to learn that to be obscure is not 
to be profound, and that to be crystal-clear is not to be 
shallow. 

Very pathetic is this bankruptcy of faith. Because he 
received not the love of the truth, that he might be saved, 
God sent Jehoram strong delusions, that he should believe 



130 



SAVED FROM FAMINE. [Second Quarter. 



a lie. He cannot rejoice in this sudden deliverance. His 
suspicious heart settles it in a moment that it is no. deliver- 
ance at all, but only a ruse of the foe. Here, then, are three 
of the many ways in which unbelief revenges itself upon 
him who harbors it. It is like the evil spirit which tore the 
man who was possessed of it. Sometimes it sneers, some- 
times it is panic-stricken, sometimes it suspects. 

II. We now turn from this dark side of our lesson to 
look, instead, upon faith. 

1. The faith of the four leprous men is not very noble, 
but still it is faith. We will call it the faith of despair. 
To venture into the city from which they were exiled was to 
starve ; to sit where they were was to die : then let them 
take refuge in the host of the Syrians. There was a faint 
chance that their enemies might save them alive; "and if 
they kill us, we shall but die." Yet to this dim faith, as 
unlike the real grace full grown as the jelly-fish upon the 
shore is unlike the tree in the forest, came the discovery 
denied to Jehoram and his nobles. " When they were come 
to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was 
no man there." Here was the opportunity for feasting in- 
stead of fasting, plenty instead of penury, wealth instead 
of wretchedness. They had taken their poor pinch of faith, 
and lo, like the widow's meal, it multiplied into fabulous 
abundance ! Granting that it was the lowest and least sort 
of faith, you will find that when Jesus was upon this earth 
he often rewarded it, Only the hem of his garment did it 
venture to touch, but that touch healed. Only an impulse 
carried Peter bounding over the boat's side, and then died 
out as suddenly as it came ; but the Lord was ready, and as 
he caught his sinking disciple he said unto him," O thou 
of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? " 

2. Perhaps not very far above this faith of the lepers, 
faith in which " despair dilates to power," is that of Jeho- 



Lesson I.] SAVED FROM FAMINE. 131 

ram's servant. The account is obscure, but the sense of 
the speaker seems to be that if the spies die they will be no 
worse off than the people in the city. To be slain by the 
sword cannot be worse than to be consumed by the famine. 
So the man counselled, "Let us send and see." We may 
call this the faith that hopes. In the teeth of prevailing- 
unbelief, and in actual response to the suspicion of the king 
himself, one nameless marl ventures to advise that before 
they believe the worst they should give themselves a chance 
— nothing more than a chance — to believe something bet- 
ter. " Let us send and see " surely means as much as this. 
It is his way of saying, ' : Seeing is believing." When to 
Nathanael's sceptical inquiry, " Can any good thing come 
out of Nazareth ? " Philip answered " Come and see," he 
set this argument as high as it will ever be set. At this 
moment it was the very best thing that could be said. Yet 
it is not true that " seeing is believing." No, seeing is see- 
ing. We remember Thomas. " Except I shall see in his 
hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the 
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will 
not believe." All this was granted to the disciple, but he 
can never have a high place among the heroes of faith. 
" Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed : 
blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
Compared with the unbelief of Jehoram, this faith is worthy 
of honor ; but it must not be mentioned in the same breath 
with that so lauded in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews. 

3. Now let us look at the faith of absolute certainty. 
It is represented by Elisha. Elisha and his predecessor, 
Elijah, were not much alike in the great lines of their char- 
acters, but in the matter of faith there was no perceptible 
difference between them. Here are four points in which 
Elisha displayed faith which Elijah never excelled. 

First, his confidence in Jehovah was so strong that 



132 SAVED FROM FAMINE. [Second Quarter. 

he feared no earthly power. Not disturbed by the king's 
message, not ruffled by the appearance of Jehoram himself, 
he sits in his house, with the elders of the city about him, 
and is master of the situation. The impetuous, rudderless 
king drives against this stern rock, and one sees at a glance 
how the collision between the two must end. 

Secondly, we signalize the faith of Elisha by remarking 
that he dared to prophesy of things which were just to 
happen. " To-morrow about this time." There must be a 
point where faith is lost in sight. When he spoke thus, 
the prophet stood within a few hours of that point. The 
pitiless belt of Syrians seemed to shut up every avenue of 
hope from outside the city. Famine had no gleam of prom- 
ise in her hollow eye as she sat, a forlorn queen, within 
the city. But in the face of both these malign forces Elisha 
speaks of fine flour and barley as though they were already 
glutting the market ; and almost while he spoke the Syrians 
were flying before an imaginary foe, and the prophecy was 
melting away into fact, as the dim shapes of night become 
hard realities at the touch of the rising sun. 

We may notice as a third feature of Elisha's faith that it 
concerned itself with the end, and not with the means. How 
plenty was to take the place of famine, Elisha did not say. 
Very likely he did not know. Faith looks forward to results ; 
methods she often leaves with God. The machinery may be 
hidden, but the clock-face is in full sight, and in due time 
the appointed hour shall strike. 

We are led, lastly, to the source of this confident and 
vigorous faith when we find the prophet in close and con- 
stant communion with God. Elisha is emphatically what 
he is called in rapid succession three times when his pro- 
phecies were fulfilled, — "the man of God." As triumphant 
as Elijah in the mighty confidence that asks and receives, 
Elisha is seen in the sixth chapter speaking to Jehovah a? 



Lesson I.] SAVED FROM FAMINE. 133 

a man speaketh to his friend. It was this God behind tin- 
prophet who made the prophet strong. 

This, then, is the lesson which our passage teaches. " Faith 
and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers." Unbelief may mis- 
take a sneer for an argument, and confound suspicion with 
caution, but it is not and never can be supreme. We were 
meant to believe. If we will not reverence, then we must fear. 
Deny God if you will, but the forces of Nature, his servants, 
are arrayed against you. " The stars in their courses," now 
as of old, " fight against Sisera." 

Perhaps your faith is only that which grows on the ragged 
edge of despair, like the Alpine flower which springs just 
where the line of eternal snow ceases. Or, a little stronger, 
it may be lighted up by a gleam of hope. A hard, material- 
istic world has encouraged it no further than this, — to grant 
it the right to " send and see." Not by the tender Hand that 
never broke the bruised reed shall even such faith as that be 
discouraged. Yet how far above it is the spirit of Elisha, fear- 
less in the face of the king, speaking of the unseen plenty as 
though, like the executioner, it were at that moment pushing 
open the door, stretching forth its firm finger to touch the 
accomplished end, regardless of the difficulties in the way, 
and with the true temper of the disciple, sitting often at 
the Master's feet and communing with God ! 

Are we not like the lepers who found themselves suddenly 
dropped down in the midst of abundance ? The believer in 
Christ can say that all things are his. Then what is our 
duty ? So long had they been scouted and shunned, per- 
haps it is no wonder that only when appetite was satisfied 
and greed had gathered all that it cared for, did those four 
leprous men begin to think of others. " Then they said one 
to another, We do not well : this day is a day of good tid- 
ings, and we hold our peace. . . . Now therefore come, that 
we may go and tell the king's household." The earliest 



134 SAVED FROM FAMINE. [Second Quarter. 

impulse in us all is to listen to the voice of appetite. Later 
in life, when the fires of appetite burn lower, we hearken 
instead to the voice of greed. The Devil tempted our Lord 
in this order, — first, to turn the stones into bread : secondly, 
to possess himself of the kingdoms of this world and all 
their glory. But Jesus thrust the temptations aside, and 
struck at once into the path which led through a life of self- 
denial to a cross of self-sacrifice. Now, in every case of con- 
version, " He sees of the travail of his soul, and is satisfied." 
The course before us is very plain, — not to gratify appe- 
tite, not to listen to ambition, but only to go about doing 
good. " This day is a day of good tidings." Kings' sons 
and kings' daughters, who are as yet ignorant of the great 
salvation, wait for us to carry them the welcome news. " If 
we tarry till the morning light," it will be too late. Let 
each one of us to whom the true riches have been brought, 
heed the message : " Come, go and tell the king's household." 



Hmon II. april 12. 



THE GOOD AND EYIL IN JEHU. 

2 Kings x: 18-31. 
By Rev. EDWARD JUDSON, D. D., New York City. 

HOW deep is the impression which the Bible has made 
upon the language of plain people ! We speak of a 
man of talent, not dreaming that the word " talent " in this 
sense is derived from our Lord's parable. Suggested by the 
Bible are the phrases " Old as Methuselah," " patient as 
Job," " meek as Moses," " strong as Samson," and a thousand 
others. So, how natural it is for us to say of a fast driver, 
" He drives like Jehu." The phrase is from this scripture : 
" The driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi ; 
for he driveth furiously." 

People greatly differ as to their liking for horses. Some, 
like the centaurs of old, seem half horse, and are never so 
happy as when in the stable or on the track. Others, who 
have not been brought up among horses, behold them with a 
sort of awe. This was the case with the ancient Hebrews. 
They were not accustomed to horses. In war their 
strong arm was infantry. So late as New Testament times, 
neither Christ nor Paul nor Peter mentions the horse. But 
Jehu was fond of horses, and the more mettlesome they were, 
the better. He loved to startle his countrymen with his 
break-neck speed, which made them say, " He drives like a 
madman." 

This bold regicide, this rough, child of prophecy, the 
Caesar, the Cromwell, or the Napoleon of his day, sweeps 



136 THE GOOD AND EVIL IN JEHU. [Second Quarter. 

through the sacred story like a cyclone. He was a usurper, 
wading to the throne ankle-deep in blood. For about a 
century before his reign, which began near 900 b. c. and 
continued twenty-eight years, the Jewish nation had consisted 
of the two distinct kingdoms, Israel and Judah, with their 
two lines of kings, two schools of prophets, and different 
capitals, Jerusalem in the kingdom of Judah, and in Israel 
the rival cities of Samaria and Jezreel. 

Naturally enough, the two kingdoms were often at war ; 
but just before the time of our story they had been coerced 
into alliance by strong pressure from Syria, their hostile 
neighbor, under the rule of Hazael. This harmony had been 
intensified by intermarriage between the dynasties of Judah 
and Israel. The weak Ahab and the wicked Jezebel had 
given in marriage their daughter Athaliah to Jehoram, king 
of Judah. The result of this union was Ahaziah, who suc- 
ceeded his father, Jehoram, as king. Meantime Ahab had 
been succeeded in Israel by his son Joram ; so that at the 
time our story begins, the kings of Judah and Israel were 
related by blood, Ahaziah being Joram's nephew. 

These blood-relations, representing the two allied kingdoms 
of Judah and Israel, were at war with Syria, Jehu being the 
commander-in-chief of their allied armies. The camp was 
intrenched at Eamoth-gilead. Joram, king of Israel, having 
been wounded at the front, had retired to Jezreel to recover. 
Ahaziah of Judah, who had not been at the seat of war at 
all, took a journey from Jerusalem to Jezreel to visit his 
uncle Joram and to show a proper interest in the common 
cause. 

The hour for the fulfilment of prophecy had struck. 
Some twenty years before, Jehovah had at Horeb said to 
Elijah : " Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be 
king over Israel. And it shall come to pass, that him that 
escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay." Elijah did 1 



Lesson II.] THE GOOD AND EVIL IX J Kill. 137 

not live to execute this command in his own person, but he 
transmitted it to his successor, Elisha, and the prophecy was 
fulfilled through him. Again, about sixteen years before, 
when Jezebel had caused the cruel death of Naboth, and 
Ahab was in the very act of taking unrightful possession of 
his vineyard, Elijah suddenly appeared to him, and in the 
name of the Lord said : " Hast thou killed, and also taken 
possession ? In the place where dogs licked the blood of 
Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. I will take 
away thy posterity, and cut off from Ahab every male 
child. . . . The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of 
Jezreel." 

Part of this horrible prediction had already come true. 
Ahab, transfixed by an arrow, had died in his chariot, and 
when they washed the vehicle in the pool of Samaria the 
dogs " licked up his blood." It was left for Jehu to fulfil the 
rest of the prophecy, and he did so to the letter. As during 
the decline of the Koman Empire the commander-in-chief of 
the Prsetorian Guards often unseated the Emperor and put 
himself in his place, so Jehu, the idol of the soldiery, with 
the armies of Judah and Israel at his back, usurped the 
authority of his king, putting to death at one fell stroke 
Jezebel, Joram, Ahaziah, and the whole posterity of 
Ahab. 

While Jehu was holding a council of war with his fellow- 
officers at Eamoth-gilead, a young man burst into the room 
with wild look, dishevelled dress, and hasty stride. He was 
Elisha's messenger, come to anoint Jehu king. Unerringly 
singling out the young officer, he said, " I have an errand to 
thee, captain." Taking him into another room, he anointed 
him, repeating in his ears the fateful words of the old 
prophecy. When Jehu returned to the other officers they 
inquired what the crazy fellow wanted. At first he strove 
to evade their question, but was at last forced to tell them 



133 THE GOOD AND EVIL IN JEHU. [Second Quarter. 

all. A frenzied enthusiasm seized them. It required but 
this single touch to crystallize into act the half-formed pur- 
poses already existing in their minds. They bear him on 
their shoulders out into the open air, and up the stairs to the 
top of the house. On the landing they pile together their 
military cloaks, extemporizing a throne. Upon it they place 
their hero and shout, " Long live King Jehu ! " 

He cuts off all communications between Eamoth-gilead 
and the outside world, that no news of the insurrection may 
reach the king. Then mounting his chariot, and attended 
only by a handful of determined soldiers, he makes a swift 
march to Jezreel, where his monarch, Joram, now conva- 
lescent, is entertaining his royal visitor and nephew, Aha- 
ziah. He crosses the Jordan and sweeps like the wind up 
the broad green fork of the plain of Esdraelon, that leads 
straight to Jezreel. But he cannot cover his approach. 
Jezreel is on a hill which commands the whole view to the 
Jordan. A lookout from one of its pinnacles espies and 
announces the squadron's approach. Joram surmises that 
they are soldiers with news, perhaps of peace, from his own 
army. He despatches a horseman to meet them and inquire 
whether peace has been made. Jehu bids the messenger fall 
in behind. Another messenger comes upon the same errand, 
and is also retained. The cavalcade rapidly approaches, and 
now the lookout recognizes the headlong gallop of Jehu, the 
son of Ximshi. 

Learning that Jehu heads the coming troop, Joram is sure 
that the war with Syria is over. He and Ahaziah both mount 
their chariots, and without a suspicion go out to meet the 
general. " Is it peace, Jehu ? " cries the hopeful king. And 
the fierce words come back : " What peace, so long as the 
whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are 
so many ? " The terrible truth of Jehu's treachery flashes upon 
the king's mind. But it is too late. With a cry of horror 



Lesson II.] THE GOOD AND EVIL IN JEHU. 139 

and of warning to Ahaziah he wheels his horses for flight, 
fully exposing his person to Jehu's unerring bow. The 
arrow pierces his heart, and he falls forward in his chariot, 
dead. This happened close to the plot of ground which 
Ahab, Joram's father, had stripped from Naboth. Jehu had 
overheard Elijah's foreboding words to Ahab upon that very 
spot, and ordered Joram's body to be left there unburied 
and dishonored. Though king of Judah, Ahaziah, too, had 
in him the blood of Ahab. A detachment from Jehu's force 
pursued him and gave him a mortal wound. 

As Jehu approached the gate of Jezreel, the queen-mother, 
Jezebel, looked out of the window of her palace, which was 
upon the wall. She had painted her face and adorned her 
hair, not, like Cleopatra, with any hope of charming the 
victor, but in a spirit of fierce bravado. Eeferring to a 
former usurper, who after a reign of only seven days had 
burned the palace over his head and had perished in the 
flames, she cried out, " Had Zimri peace, who slew his 
master ? " " Who is on my side ? " called out Jehu. Two or 
three of her slaves appeared at the window, eager to do his 
bidding. " Throw her down," he shouted. They seize their 
helpless victim and fling her headlong. Her blood splashes 
the wall, and even the chariot. Jehu drives remorselessly 
over her crushed body, and leaves her. to be devoured by 
dogs. Again Elijah's prophecy had its literal fulfilment. 

Jehu was now master of Jezreel ; but Samaria, the other 
capital of Israel, strongly fortified, was still loyal to the 
dynasty of Ahab. Here had been his seraglio, and here were 
living seventy of his sons, under the tutelage of the principal 
men of the city. Every one of these brothers of Joram 
would be a dangerous aspirant to the throne which Jehu 
coveted. They must be taken off at any cost. Jehu conceals 
his own weakness under a bold front. He challenges the 
rulers of Samaria to set up one of Ahab's sons as king and 



140 THE GOOD AND EVIL IN JEHU. [Second Quarter. 

meet him in battle. Panic-stricken at the proposal, they 
promise to do his bidding. He orders them to cut off the 
heads of the king's sons and bring them to him as bloody 
tokens of their loyalty. They obey, and heap up these 
ghastly trophies at the gate of Jezreel. Jehu, gazing with 
hypocritical horror upon his own work, strives to shirk the 
responsibility of his crime, saying, " I conspired against my 
master, and slew him ; but who slew all these ? " 

On his triumphal march from Jezreel to Samaria the new 
king met a caravan of forty-two princes, brothers of Ahaziah. 
They were on their way from Jerusalem to Jezreel, intend- 
ing to pay their respects to King Joram and the queen - 
mother, Jezebel. Suspecting no danger, they disclose their 
lineage and their errand. They were of Ahab's blood ; and 
in order to fulfil Elijah's prophecy, as well as to cut off 
every possible competitor for the crown, he ordered them to 
be put to death. 

Farther on he met Jehonadab, chief of a tribe of ascetics. 
To secure the sanction of his saintly character, he took 
this man into the chariot, and they proceed together, 
"the warrior in his coat-of-mail, the ascetic in his hair- 
cloth." 

A Eornan Emperor once wished that all Borne had but a 
single neck, that he might cut it off' at one stroke, Jehu 
formed the purpose of alluring all the Baal-worshippers of 
the kingdom into one great trap, that he might destroy them 
at one blow. He gave out that he himself was a worshipper 
of Baal. " Ahab," said he, " served Baal a little ; but Jehu 
shall serve him much." He proposed a great festival in the 
temple of Baal. All the worshippers of Jehovah were 
rigidly excluded. "When all the idolaters had gathered and 
had been clad in sacred vestments, he gave his soldiers the 
order, " Go in, and slay them ; let none come forth." It was 
done. The temple itself was then destroyed, and an end 



Lesson II] THE GOOD AND EVIL IN JEHU. 141 

put forever to the worship of Baal in Israel. Jehu did not, 
however, remove from Bethel and Dan the golden calves set 
up by Jeroboam as vile symbols of Jehovah. With all his 
zeal against idolatry, " he took no heed to walk in the law of 
the Lord God of Israel." 

"We turn away with relief from the massacre of Joram and 
Ahaziah, of Jezebel and the seventy sons of Joram, of 
Ahaziah's forty-two brothers and the multitude of priests and 
worshippers of Baal ; but " all scripture is given by inspiration 
of God, and is profitable for instruction in righteousness." 
So, having learned the story of Jehu, let us study, in the 
second place, his character. 

Jehu had great executive ability. His fast driving was 
characteristic. He was impetuous, but not reckless. Hav- 
ing formed a purpose, he rushed to its realization. He 
brought things to pass. He combined energy with tenacity, 
and was capable of rapid decision. He was not so dominated 
by fixed notions that he could not speedily and silently re- 
trace his steps when he found himself on the wrong path. 
Like Napoleon at Austerlitz, he knew the value of five 
minutes. He had a strong personal magnetism that coerced 
his associates into willing and even eager subservience. A 
true descendant of Jacob, he was versed in the science of 
dissimulation. He had the claws of a tiger, but they were 
muffled in velvet. His step was quick, but stealthy. He 
was not only rapid, but persistent. He never tired. His 
speedy pace was ceaseless, on and on. His deadly work did 
not stop half-way, but utterly extirpated the dynasty of 
Ahab and the worship of Baal. 

But Jehu's character was stained by vindictiveness. The 
bloody role assigned to him by the Omnipotent was congenial 
to his nature. He was ready enough to obey God so long as 
the divine command fell in with his own ambitious and 
bloodthirsty passions. A man who wished the stones cleared 



142 THE GOOD AND EVIL IN JEHU. [Second Quarter. 

away from a little plot of ground once called together the 
boys of the neighborhood, and setting up a mark outside of 
his ground, proposed that all should throw stones at it. The 
stones were soon removed. How T ready we are to do God's 
will when it happens to coincide with our own feelings ! " We 
seize eagerly," says Goethe, " upon a law that will serve as a 
weapon to our passions." 

Jehu was a kind of human tiger, and only too glad to have 
God use him as such. He had, indeed, a sense of destiny, 
like Napoleon or Stanley ; but this destiny impelled him 
along the grooves of his own lust for rule and thirst for 
blood. His personal enemies, — the family of Ahab, which 
stood between him and the throne, the worshippers of Baal, 
who might cause his royal head to rest uneasy, — he went at 
them as if armed with a firman from the Almighty. He 
was like an executioner hacking his victim to pieces with 
tierce glee. 

It was as if a Christian, moved by scripture precepts 
drawn from a far-away age and from a legal dispensation, 
should beat his child in anger. How different the spirit 
of a father whom I knew ! After using the rod prayerfully, 
reluctantly, and even tenderly, he broke it up and threw it into 
the fire. Jehu was like some of the old divines, who seemed 
to preach hell with a gusto. We are by nature partisans, 
and think ourselves most exemplary Christians when we are 
fighting tooth and nail to build up a particular church in 
competition with other churches. A man is often full of 
zeal when he or his own faction is at the head. Eeverse the 
situation, and his enthusiasm evaporates like the morning 
dew. Jehu is like a minister secretly rejoicing over the 
heresy of a successful rival and suddenly becoming valiant 
for the very phase of truth which his erring brother has 
slighted. 

A traveller visiting Hadstock in England, writes : " The 



Lesson II] THE GOOD AND EVIL IN JEHU. 143 

church here, like the cathedrals of Worcester and Boch- 
ester, is said to have had the skins of sacrilegious Danes 
stretched on the doors ; fragments under the nail-heads are 
found, on recent examination, to be portions of human 
skin." Jehu possessed the sort of religious zeal which led 
men to drive those nails. He had orthodoxy, without per- 
sonal piety. His speech is full of cant. ' He was an un- 
blessed instrument of God, like Satan as described by Milton, 

" His evil 
Thou usest, and from thence creat'st more good." 

Jehu's obedience was but formal, — not from the heart, 
not of faith, not unto salvation. He served God so far as it 
was to his interest, and then forsook him. He destroyed the 
dynasty of Ahab and the worship of Baal, for they stood in 
the way of his ambition; but he spared the golden calves, 
that they might help to preserve the unity of his kingdom. 
Let us not make the mistake of supposing our hearts pleas- 
ing to God because we do certain outward acts, however im- 
portant, which accord with his command. Whether under 
the Old Covenant or now, love is the sole fulfilling of the 
law. " If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I 
give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth 
me nothin'g." 



ilrsson III. april 19. 



JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. 

Jonah i: 1-17. 
By Rev. W. 0. STEARNS, Cazexovia, N. Y. 

I. JONAH'S FLIGHT. 

THE prophet Jonah was contemporary with the Spartan 
lawgiver Lycurgus, being a child when Homer was 
singing to the Ionian lords and ladies of Achilles and his 
wrath. Nineveh was then at the height of its power. It was 
the oldest, largest, most wicked city of that age. Its circum- 
ference of " three days' journey ; ' agrees with the statements 
of Strabo and the results of modern explorations. " Nineveh " 
meant both the particular city built by Nimrod and men- 
tioned in Genesis x. 11, and a union of four primeval cities, 
including Nineveh proper. In the larger meaning of the 
word, Nineveh had an average length of twenty-five miles, and 
an average breadth of fifteen, with four minor cities in the 
corners, of which Nineveh proper was the largest. Truly it 
was "an exceeding great city." Yet was it great not so 
much on account of its size, as because of its importance in 
God's providence as the capital of the Gentile world. 

Jonah's hesitation to obey the divine command was not, 
however, occasioned by Nineveh's importance in either sense. 
He was actuated by a narrow mind and an unevangelical heart. 
He would not become God's messenger to a country so hostile 
and so formidable to Israel. Like nearly all the Hebrews 



Lesson III.] JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. 145 

then, he was puffed up by thoughts of Israel's magnificence 
after the conquests of Jeroboam II., the monarch who drove 
back the Syrians, captured Damascus, and recovered the 
whole country from Hamath to the Dead Sea. Ammon and 
Moab were now subdued, and the Trans-Jordanic tribes were 
restored to their homes from captivity. Jonah's prophetic 
activity was therefore contemporaneous with remarkable 
political successes, with the flood-tide of Israel's later-day 
fortunes. This influenced him. He was too thoroughly a 
mere citizen of the favored nation. 

The fact that the mission was one of mercy and grace, 
under the circumstances heightened his distaste for it. How 
many times had it not been recorded touching Jehovah's 
enemies who had ceased to be such : " And God saw their 
works, that they turned from their evil way ; and God repented 
of the evil that he had said he would do unto them ; and he 
did it not." Jonah's spirit was as ungenerous as that which 
actuated the elder brother in our Lord's parable. It was na- 
tional exclusiveness. grudging to others the privileges which 
God had given to Israel, intensified by that so common form 
of selfishness which makes a man or a community enjoy the 
sense of distinction above others. 

Not for Pharisees only did our Lord pronounce that parable. 
His own disciples needed it. Not until Peter had the vision 
at this very Joppa to which Jonah fled ; not until Paul and 
Barnabas had been ordained to the special work of preaching 
to the Gentiles, and wonders and signs were accrediting their 
work ; not until a council of the Church at Jerusalem had 
decided that uncircumcised men might through faith be 
pleasing to God, — did the Christian children of Israel fully 
understand that Jehovah is God of the Gentiles as well as of 
the Jews. The same spirit has, in fact, never wholly left 
the Church. Intolerance and exclusiveness, as displayed by 
Christians toward each other and toward unbelievers, are 
10 



146 JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. [Second Quarter. 

among Satan's mightiest weapons. Manifestations of Jonah's 
temper are, alas ! all about us even now. 

Says Martin Luther : " Because Jonah was sorry that God 
was so kind, he would rather not preach. He would rather 
die than that the grace of God, which was the peculiar privi- 
lege of the people of Israel, should be communicated to the 
Gentiles also, who had neither the word of God, nor the laws 
of Moses, nor the worship of God, nor prophets, nor 'anything 
else, but rather strove against God and his word and his 
people." 

Jonah fled from " the presence of the Lord," that is, from 
the Promised Land, where alone the Shekinah was supposed 
to dwell. Alone, weary, anxious, doubtless remorseful, he 
arrives at Joppa, and boards the first ship bound for a foreign 
port. This happened to be one about to clear for Tarshish, — 
probably a town in the south of Spain, — with a cargo of 
eastern manufactures to exchange for the silver, iron, tin, and 
lead of the far west. From the closest communion with his 
God, the renegade prophet hastens to where he believes no 
word from that God can reach him. Once on board the 
merchantman, he goes below, and fatigued by his hasty 
flight, falls into a deep sleep. The word describing this is 
the same as that used of Adam's slumber in the garden, and 
that from which Sisera never woke,— it was a profound 
stupor. 

II. JONAH'S PUNISHMENT. 

The joy of the ship's company at weighing anchor was 
brief. Hardly were they out of port when, as Coverdale 
quaintly puts it, " the Lord hurled a great wynde into the 
sea." Sudden storms were common enough on that rocky 
coast. Josephus tells us that " the north wind opposes and 
beats upon the shore and dashes mighty waves against the 
rocks. . . . This wind," he adds, " is called by those that sail 
there 'the black north wind.'" Josephus's description of a 



Lesson III.] JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. 147 

storm near the harbor of Joppa is paralleled by Jonah's, 
and it resembles that of another " tempestuous wind, called 
Euroclydon," which fell upon the ship carrying Paul to 
Eome. Modern sailors name such a storm a " Levanter," 
and testify to its exceeding severity. 

The Hebrews were not ocean-goers. Their nautical terms 
are not numerous, and those used in this description are ob- 
scure. Nevertheless the account smacks of brine, just as it 
is redolent with personal experience. So terrible were wind 
and wave that the ship was thought to be "broken." The 
sea roared, and the billows heaved their foaming crests 
against the ship's devoted sides till she creaked and quiv- 
ered under the blows. Terror-stricken, the mariners " cried 
every one to his god," like those in Shakspeare's " Tempest," 
" All lost ! to prayers, to prayers ! all lost ! " 

Jonah alone appears unconscious of danger. Even the 
captain's piercing wail, " Arise, call upon thy God, if so be 
that God will think upon us, that we perish not," seems 
hardly to have roused him. He still retained the careless 
self-security with which he had flung himself down, confi- 
dent that once out of Israel, Jehovah would not take the 
trouble to pursue him. The restlesness of remorse had not 
yet come over him. His resolution to disobey had been so 
firm that conscience had well-nigh ceased to warn. 

But Jonah soon appreciated the utter folly of his course. 
The increasing peril proved the uselessness of his prayers, 
and convinced him that he was the cause of the tempest. 
The seamen suspected this, and cast lots to discover if it 
was true. The lot fell on Jonah. Questions follow thick and 
fast : " What is thine occupation, thy country, thy people ? " 

When he replies, Jonah has come to himself. All the 
better part of his character stands forth. Dignified, manly, 
worthy of a servant and prophet of Jehovah, he answers, 
" A Hebrew am I ; and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, 



148 JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. [Second Quarter. 

who hath made the sea and the dry land." The prophet is 
himself again, proclaiming Jehovah's name and power. To 
these heathen sailors in their terror he boldly declares Jeho- 
vah to be the true and sole God, ruler of the sea and of 
all lands, hating sin and worthy to be worshipped. In those 
terrible moments, as the great waves break across the deck 
and all expect instantly to be engulfed, while the shipmaster 
interrogates and the sailors alternately curse and pray, the 
guilty prophet gives himself back to his God, bravely using 
what few moments of life may remain in making amends for 
the past by the faithful preaching of Jehovah. 

Nor is this the only or the clearest proof that Jonah has 
come to a better mind. He is determined that the crew shall 
not be lost on account of his transgression. " I will tell you," 
he says to those with him in the ship, " what you must do. 
Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea ; so shall the sea 
be calm to you : for I know that for my sake this great tem- 
pest is upon you." Jonah will use no prevarication ; he will 
not deny his disobedience. Such rebellion, he knows, deserves 
death. A believing Israelite, well acquainted with the severe 
justice of the Holy One as revealed both in the law and in 
the history of the nation, Jonah expects no other sentence. 
Fierce eyes are gazing into his very soul ; a fiercer sea yawns 
at his side. No matter ; Jonah will die, truly and justly. 

Charles Eeade vividly describes this scene. " Nobility be- 
gets nobility, and the partners of his peril could not bear to 
sacrifice a man in whom they saw no evil, but, on the contrary, 
justice, heroism, and self-sacrifice. The poor, honest fellows 
said, ' Anything but that,' and chose rather to be wrecked on 
shore. So they got out their long oars and made a gallant 
effort to row their trireme ashore, and there leave her 
bones, but save their own lives and that self-sacrificing hero. 
This was not to be. Sixty hands laboring at those oars 
could not prevail against the One Hand that hurled the 



Lesson III] JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. 149 

raging sea at that laboring galley and drove her from the 
land." 

Seeing their effort futile, they cry to God, no more each to 
his own god. Most tender is their appeal. " We beseech 
thee, Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's 
life ! " They beg that if Jonah is innocent his blood may 
not be laid to their charge. They had done what they could 
to learn the divine will. So, having prayed, they took up 
Jonah and cast him into the sea. 

The history of Jonah's mission is thus far complete. We 
have traced its origin, we have followed its progress, we have 
witnessed its result. As that pale, submissive face disap- 
peared beneath the waves, the storm ceased, and, as the 
Hebrew has it, "the sea stood from her raging." The res- 
cued sailors offered sacrifices and paid their vows to the God 
of Israel's prophet, and sailed on in safety, we may trust, " to 
the haven where they would be." 

III. IS IT HISTORY? 

Largely owing to the extraordinary character of the miracle 
by which Jehovah punished his disobedient servant, number- 
less theories have been advanced casting doubt on the his- 
torical character of this narrative. Without affirming that 
these sacrifice its value for religious uses, we ask : Does it 
read like a dream ; does it seem like an historical allegory 
worked up with great skill and with the most extravagant 
license to the imagination ? Is the shipmaster allegorical, or 
the seamen, the ship, the sea, the storm ? Does the story read 
like Eobinson Crusoe ? Does it resemble a draft out of popu- 
lar tradition, as if it were the Hebrew version of Andromeda, 
Hercules, or Saint George and the Dragon ? 

The mention of a prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai, in 
2 Kings xiv. 25, the allusions in Tobit and Josephus to 
Jonah's visit to Nineveh, the belief of the Jews that the 



150 JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. [Second Quarter. 

story was an account of facts, and Jesus' reference to the 
repentance of the Ninevites, all point to the historical char- 
acter of the book. As to internal evidence, if the mirac- 
ulous incidents in it are to be regarded as indicating its alle- 
gorical character, nearly every historical book of the Bible 
must come into the same category. If the moral and 
spiritual suggestions of the story are to be regarded as evi- 
dence that it is allegorical, all biblical history which is 
morally instructive is to be esteemed not really history, but 
only religious instruction in parabolic form. Jesus refers to 
the central fact of the book, Jonah's mission to Nineveh, as 
historical. He mentions in the same way the miraculous 
preservation of the prophet in the belly of the fish. To 
the supernatural there can be neither greater nor less. 
Says Charles Reade: "Is this miracle a childish one? A 
rebellious servant was to be crushed into submission, yet 
not destroyed. He was to feel the brief agony of death by 
drowning, then to be laid in a horrible dark prison till he 
repented, then to be restored to the world in a fit state of 
mind to take a long journey and threaten the greatest city 
in the world. Now then invent your own miracle, and per- 
haps you will think very highly of that of the book of Jonah 
in comparison." 

IV. LESSONS. 

History or allegory, this experience of the prophet Jonah 
furnishes many rich spiritual lessons. 

1. One is that religious privilege, even that of the closest 
personal relation to God, does not destroy man's will. It 
does not annihilate his power to rebel or otherwise trans- 
gress. We are " fearfully and wonderfully made ; " and 
nowhere does this fact more impressively appear than 
in this awful ability to depart from God, spite of all his 
mercv and grace. 



Lbsbon HI] JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. 151 

2. Jonah's fate also reveals the terrible special penalty of 
disobedience to the Eternal after having walked with him. 
Rebellion against the known commands of God is sure in 
any case to receive its due reward. " Every iniquity has its 
own voice at the judgment-seat of God." No law of nature 
is so unrelenting, so deadly rigorous in operation, as this : 
" The soul that sinneth, it shall die." But doubly, trebly 
bitter is the fate of those who from the very blaze of God's 
face are cast into the outer darkness. 

3. Yet even in cases of such worst apostasy Jehovah loves 
the sinner, while hating the sin. What patience with the 
erring! God despairs of no one, not even of his recreant 
prophet or wicked Nineveh. Even that mighty hive of men, 
heathen, corrupt, defiled, lost, who have never heard his 
name save as that of an insignificant local deity, Jehovah 
cherishes, planning with infinite care to reach them with 
the message of eternal life. Our Father in heaven has not 
left himself without a witness in any human breast. The 
Ninevites are the objects of his love, though they know him 
not. 

4. Both the animate and the inanimate creation are the 
ministers of God's love for men. The stars in their courses 
fight against Sisera. The storm brings Jonah to himself, and 
both him and his shipmates to God. The roaring sea re- 
ceives and bears, but does not drown him. The monster of 
the deep is his vehicle, and not his grave. 

5. How catholic, after all, is the spirit of the Old Testa- 
ment ! It is by no means a merely national book. The re- 
ligion which it enshrines is for all men. It is evangelical. 
Jonah is sent to preach the gospel " to the regions beyond," 
and little as he loves the mission, cannot for a moment doubt 
that it is actually from Jehovah. How wonderful this ! Had 
he not recognized in his heart the essential naturalness of the 
missionary mandate, had his religion, even as he apprehended 



152 JONAH SENT TO NINEVEH. [Second Quarter. 

it, been as narrow, as strictly national, as his sympathies 
were, he would surely have suspected that the command to 
go and preach to Nineveh came from some demon, some 
deceiving spirit. Of such a thought his behavior and speech 
show no trace. The words, " Arise, go to Nineveh, that great 
city, and cry against it," he is no less ready to accept as from 
Jehovah than if they had bidden him raise his voice in favor 
of righteousness in Israel itself. Hebrew that he was, with 
all sorts of unclear ideas touching the relation of Jeohvah 
to mankind at large, he still somehow felt that the field of his 
nation's religion was the world. The first note of evangelical 
triumph, that the woman's seed should bruise the serpent's 
head, never once died from the air during all the long period 
of preparation for Messiah. Moses and David, Isaiah, Jonah, 
and "all the prophets" re-echo it, till at last He comes to 
fulfil it who, instead of saying, " Go to Nineveh," bade his 
apostles, " Go, disciple all the nations," assuring them that in 
consequence of their preaching, men should come from the 
north and from the south, from the east and from the west, 
and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom 
of heaven. 



ilestfon IV. april 26. 



NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. 

Jonah Hi: 1-10. 
By Kev. JOHN H. MASON, New Haven, Conn. 

JONAH was foolish, Jonah was wise : foolish to flee 
wise to yield ; foolish to expect to balk God, wise 
to learn so quickly his folly. " If a man would flee from God, 
let him flee to him," says the old Latin proverb. Jonah 
tried to escape God by flight from him. He found it insane. 
Misery, calamity, peril, and the sense of an ever-present God 
who had brought them, did their work ; and the prophet, 
back again at the starting-point, heeds the divine voice, and 
turns with an obedient heart to fulfil the mission which he 
had thought to escape. 

The history in the third chapter, brief as it is, sweeps a 
wide circle, for it touches upon God, — his sovereignty and 
his resources ; his nature and its demands. It touches upon 
man, — his relation to God, his nature and its needs. It 
touches upon sin, upon repentance, upon forgiveness. Notice 
some of the lessons. 

i. god's authokity. 

" And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second 
time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, 
and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." The 
Being who speaks is conscious of his right. He does not 
mince words. Here is no cautious approach, address, appeal, 
to propitiate the man and win the service desired. God 



154 NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. [Second Quarter. 

speaks to Jonah as a sovereign to a subject. " Do this be- 
cause I wish it done: I am thy master." 

It is interesting to note that God's demand upon Jonah 
now is precisely what it was in the first place. There is no 
effort to compromise because of Jonah's former flight, no 
paring down of the commission in hope that part may be 
accomplished, if not all. Far to the east, on the banks of the 
Tigris, is a great godless city, the capital of an empire. Sin 
has a stronghold within it, doom is sweeping down upon it. 
Time is short. A warning must be spoken. The city may 
be saved. The city is God's, though it may spurn his law. 
Jonah is Gods, though Jonah has once disobeyed God's com- 
mand. Now comes that command again, — plain, stern, un- 
compromising ' : Arise, go, preach." 

The knife must have cut closer to the heart from the fact 
that while the same words were spoken, they contained 
no reference to the former disobedience. Yet the slight 
change of form in the expression seems full of meaning. 
" Arise, go, and preach the preaching that I bid thee." To 
Jonah these words meant more than reached the ear. " I 
told thee to go, and thou didst go the other way ; now I tell 
thee, go and preach, — see that thou preach no other 
message than mine." 

God owns men. All that we are, all that we have, all the 
service of our lives, belongs to God. We delude ourselves 
with any sense of self-ownership, forgetting" him in whom 
all rights are vested. We search for clear titles and think we 
have found them. We bargain for the soil and say it is ours. 
We get the idea that we own what God only loans us ; and 
when the real Owner takes it away, as he has a right to do, 
we too often rebel. Worst of all is the mistake of supposing 
that we own ourselves. By every conceivable consideration 
we are God's. Sovereignty is his. Men shall learn it 
beyond the grave if they will not learn it here. 



Lesson IV.] NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. 155 

II. god's way with the disobedient. 

How is Nineveh to be warned 'i There is a man far off in 
Galilee who never saw Nineveh ; Nineveh never heard of 
him. But he is the instrument which God chooses for the 
work. It seems like a strange choice, but God's ways are 
not as man's. A human instrument, though it may become 
the most useful, is the hardest kind of an instrument to 
fit to God's purposes, for in it is the element of human free- 
dom. By virtue of that transcendent gift man may oppose 
himself to the Creator, who made him free. This is what 
Jonah did in the first instance. Yet Jonah is still the chosen 
instrument. 

See how God goes to work to bring this man's will into 
subjection to his own. " Obedience," well says Carlyle, " is 
our universal duty and destiny ; wherein whoso will not 
bend must break. Too early and too thoroughly we can- 
not be trained to know that Would in this world of ours is 
as mere zero to Should, and for the most part as the smal- 
lest of fractions even to Shall." 

What a complex of world-wide, universe-wide, machinery 
the Sovereign of all can set in motion for the subduing of a 
human spirit ! " Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker ! " 
God's resources are infinite. The lightnings flash at God's 
call and say : " Here we are." The stars in their courses 
may fight against men. To break the proud will of Egypt's 
monarch, rivers run blood, cattle die, every green thing is 
eaten, thick darkness swallows the day. And when all this 
is not sufficient to subdue, Death stalks into every household, 
smiting the first-born and filling the land with wailing. 
Jonah is not more obdurate than Pharaoh. The storms, the 
seas, the worse tumults of his own bosom, the upbraidings 
of the crew, his thoughts of the past, his fear, — all are God's 
instruments, and under his direction each does its uncon- 



156 NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. [Second Quarter. 

scious part toward the subjection of Jonah and the salva- 
tion of the Assyrian capital. 

Jonah is a changed man. From a coward he has 
become a dauntless hero and prophet. His will, yester- 
day rebellious, is to-day obedient. " So Jonah arose, and 
went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord." 
His act is willing, straightforward, unhesitating. His pur- 
pose is at one with God's. The ways of God are never 
unnecessarily severe. Men who have to be taught obedience 
through these hard lessons are always those who can be no 
otherwise schooled ; and they are often, in the end, the 
happiest. Blessed is the man who has learned these tough 
lessons well ; he knows the joy of true liberty. The most 
thoroughly obedient servant of the heavenly Master, precisely 
he is the freest being in all this world. Jonah thought him- 
self free when he fled ; but in fact his first real enjoyment of 
freedom came when he started to fulfil God's command. 

in. god's missionary message and its effect. 

Jonah was the first foreign missionary. The Old Testament 
is far from being a merely national or Jewish book. Adam 
was no Jew ; nor was Enoch or Job or Melchizedek. Even 
Elijah, typical prophet, prototype of Jesus himself, is not 
known to have belonged to the chosen people ; and if he did, 
it was one of the wild Trans- Jordan ic tribes which claimed 
him. Further, selfish and narrow as Israel was prone to be, 
we find in its history numerous signs that it recognized its 
world-wide evangelic mission. Jonah's conviction is one of 
these signs ; it is the most interesting feature of this pro- 
phecy. All that we have thus far considered had been going 
on, not for the sake of Jews, but that the men of far-off 
Nineveh might learn of God, his love and holiness. 

The very heart of our conception of God as a moral being is 
his holiness. The holiness of God compels him to insist upon 



Lesson IV.] NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. 157 

holiness in all men as in all the rest of his rational creatures. 
Man's heart is by nature unholy, and the preaching of right- 
eousness is needed everywhere. But in Nineveh sin had taken 
on its most frightful developments. A sad comment is it 
upon our poor human nature that just in proportion as men 
mass themselves in communities sin grows. The corrupt 
plague-spots of earth are its great cities ; there it is that sin 
breeds, vice lurks, crime hides. It is worst in those where 
wealth is most plentiful, and worst of all where, as in 
Nineveh and Borne, treasure has been piled up, not by 
industry, but by war. 

Nineveh the queen of the East, Nineveh with its vast pop- 
ulation, its lustrous name, its untold treasure, its countless re- 
sources, its history and its prestige, seemed to have everything 
which could make it strong. But Nineveh lacked just one 
element of fortune, — righteousness. Ah, fatal lack ! Crime 
ran riot in her streets. The rich ground the faces of the poor, 
and there was none to help. Nameless private vices, like 
those of modern Paris, honeycombed society both physically 
and morally. Nineveh's cup of iniquity was well-nigh full. 
A brief time more of unrepented sin, and the rod of divine 
fury must fall. Sharp and stern sounded the warning : " Yet 
forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The king, 
the usurer, the rope-dancer, the harlot, hear, laugh, and then 
turn pale. 

Jonah's preaching was plain, earnest, impressive, effective. 
All the experiences through which God had led the man 
since he fled to Tarshish would tend to make him earnest, but 
it required more than this to render his preaching effective. 
God went into the city with Jonah, but God had also gone 
before. The Spirit of God, which like the wind cometh and 
goeth no man can tell whence or whither, had preceded the 
prophet, preparing the hearts of the people for his message. 
God often uses, as it were, two hands in the accomplishment 



158 NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. [Secoxd Quarter. 

of his work. With one he sends forth the Spirit, with the 
other he leads forth a man. And these two agencies, one 
divine and one human, work marvellously well together to 
mighty ends. Jonah did not consider how God was opening 
the hearts of that people for his message. He went to them 
simply because God bade him, and preached too mechanically 
what God told him to preach. Had he had proper faith, his 
course would have been easier. 

The men of Nineveh were ready for the missionary. 
" The people of Nineveh believed God. ' To believe God 
is a great thing. Especially was it so for these people, who 
possessed no other revelation than that inner law whereof 
Paul tells us, which was written in their hearts. They knew 
much, however, even so. They were sure that there must be 
a Supreme Being ; they conceived, feebly at any rate, his 
holiness, and knew that he condemned their sin. Stirred 
from on high, they believed the missionary's word that there 
was just one hope for them, — they must renounce their sins. 
Oh, that modern transgressors would hearken to Heaven's 
message thus readily ! By a thousand channels sin is sweep- 
ing men to death, and repentance is the only way of escape. 
Prophets faithful as Jonah, and bearing commission from 
Jonah's God, incessantly cry to them that they are not 
safe; but they stop their ears. 

The best possible evidence of the Ninevites' belief in the 
missionary's sermon was their conduct. They acted. They 
bestirred themselves as if they believed that the sin of their 
hearts and lives was endangering them. They proclaimed a 
fast. From greatest to least, they put on sackcloth. Most 
remarkable of all, the king joined in the general humiliation. 
His royal robe gave place to the garb of mourning. He came 
down from the throne and sat in ashes. He sent out a de- 
cree to cover beasts as well as men with sackcloth, command- 
in^ that a mighty cry go up to God for mercy, and that every 



Lesson IV.] NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. 159 

one turn from his evil way, in the hope that God might hear 
their prayers, forgive their sins, and save Nineveh. " Who can 
tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce 
anger, that we perish not ? " 

This is not the common language of kings. Humility is 
not often a grace of royalty. It takes a great deal to humble 
a king. Defeat in war will sometimes do it. Death will 
sometimes do it. Augustus, dying, said to the friends about 
him : " What think ye of the comedy ? Have I fairly played 
my part ? " Alexander, dying, commanded that he should be 
borne to the grave with his hands outside the cere-cloths, so 
that people might see how empty they were. Charlemagne, 
on the other hand, wanted to be buried sitting on a marble 
throne, clad in his imperial robes, with his sword at his side, 
as if to keep up the hollow delusion of human power even 
beyond the grave. But the ringing cry of Jonah reaches even 
the royal palace, and the king, humbled, joins his subjects in 
their plea for God's mercy. Doom was descending. The 
vengeance of God and the sin of Nineveh were to come in 
conflict. Forty days, and all would be over. There was but 
one hope. The men of Nineveh, warned by God's prophet, 
roused by God's Spirit, and self-condemned, believed God. 
They turned from their sin and cried for mercy. 

iv. god's mercy. • 

God's heart was moved ; doom was averted ; Nineveh was 
saved. " And God saw their works, that they turned from 
their evil way ; and God repented of the evil, that he had 
said that he would do unto them ; and he did it not." The 
mercy of God ? how it shines like a sun through the dark 
cloud that was gathering over the devoted city ! Indeed, we 
see mercy gleaming like a ray of sunshine all through this 
chapter. God was merciful to Jonah in following him 
through all his flight, in bringing him back to the starting- 



160 NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. [Second Quarter. 

point, in using him though he had shown himself unworthy, 
in making him a power for good to others. God was merciful 
to Nineveh in sending the messenger to warn the city, and 
in preparing the hearts of the people for the message. And 
now God is merciful in listening to their cry for forgiveness. 
His demands have been met. The people have humbled 
themselves and have turned from their sin. They shall not 
be destroyed. It is the crowning lesson of the chapter, of all 
Revelation, — the infinite mercy of God. 

God repented. His attitude toward Nineveh was changed. 
What changed it ? Nineveh's attitude toward sin. Nineveh, 
sunken in sin as she had been, being roused by the preaching 
of God's prophet, forsook her sin and turned from it. Then 
" God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would 
do unto them." What is meant by God's repentance ? Speak- 
ing to man, God must use language with which man is 
familiar. If the Scripture tells us that the sun rises, we are 
not troubled by the statement, though we know that the 
sun stands still. When it says that God rested on the 
seventh day, we do not think of him as wearied, though rest 
commonly implies weariness. The Scripture speaks of God 
as " repenting," but it corrects any possible misunderstanding 
by hundreds of passages which tell us of his prescience, his 
wisdom, and his immutability. " Eepsntance " is a strong 
term. It means a changed attitude. The whole attitude of 
the Ninevites toward sin, and so, toward God, being changed, 
in that same hour God's attitude toward them was changed. 
God was not taken by surprise. The change in the people 
was just what he anticipated, — it was precisely what he had 
sent his prophet to secure; and he did not mean that his 
word should return to him void. 

It may be asked, What did Jonah's prophecy mean ? Was 
it prophecy at all ? Was Jonah at fault in saying uncondi- 
tionally that the city would fall, or did God err in having so 



Lksson IV.] NINEVEH BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE. 161 

declared, and then failing to send destruction? Let no Chris- 
tian's faith be shaken by these questions. The foretelling 
of coming events is an important function of prophecy, but 
it is not the whole of prophecy. Putting before men in an 
authoritative way certain great principles of truth and duty 
is another of its conspicuous offices. Nearly every prophet 
was much more a preacher and teacher than a seer. Jonah's 
denunciation, categorical indeed in form, was in fact condi- 
tional, and was so understood. " Destruction is coming as a 
penalty for sin unless you turn." It is evident that this was 
God's meaning, for he was quick to save when they had 
turned. That the Ninevites, too, saw in this prophecy not a 
final, unchangeable word of doom, but rather a threatened 
vengeance which repentance might avert, is clear from their 
conduct. Had they thought of it otherwise, why should they 
have ceased sinning ? They knew little or nothing of any 
other- world judgment. Nor was there the slightest danger 
of deceiving them. Paradox and exaggeration are in Eastern 
speech the great means of emphasis and force. 

It is an old story, this of Jonah, yet it teems with lessons 
even for us in this late afternoon of the nineteenth century. 
Let us learn that man belongs to God ; that when God calls, 
man would better listen and obey ; that God is holy, forever 
opposed to sin ; that God is merciful, and in his love forever 
ready to receive and forgive the penitent. 

" Our wills are ours, we know not how : 
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine." 



tlefitfon v. spap 3. 



ISEAEL OFTEN REPKOYED. 

Amos iv: Jf,-13. 
By Rev. F. W. BAKEMAN, D. D., Chelsea, Mass. 

I. THE BOOK. 

THE book of Amos seems to be a condensed summary of 
those prophetic discourses which by God's command 
the prophet had delivered against his idolatrous brethren 
of the northern kingdom It naturally falls into three divi- 
sions. (1) Warnings and threatenings against certain sur- 
rounding nations (chapters i. and iii.). (2) Special warnings 
and threatened judgments against Israel, or the northern 
kingdom (chapters iii., vi.). (3) A series of prophetic visions, 
in which the seer beholds the sad fate of Israel, closing with 
a glowing picture of the restoration of David's kingdom in 
more than its pristine glory, to remain forever unshaken 
(chapters vii., ix.). 

In style and conception the book is both poetic and orato- 
rical. Many passages, of which the one now under consid- 
eration is a good example, show plainly that they are the 
substance of what was once delivered in the fervor of extem- 
poraneous address. Throughout the book the imagery is ori- 
ginal, bold, and forcible, but also very simple, drawn mostly 
from the prophet's own observations as a shepherd, in the 
free, wild life of the wilderness about Tekoa, in daily com- 
munion with Nature. 



Lesson V.] ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. 163 



II. THE MAN. 

Amos was a native of Tekoa, a small fortified town built 
by Eehoboam for the defence of Judah, twelve miles south- 
east of Jerusalem and six miles from Bethlehem. It stood 
amid a desert country, dry and sandy, fit only for pasturage 
and the most simple kinds of husbandry. Amos lived in the 
reigns of Jeroboam II., king of Israel, and of Uzziah, king of 
Judah. As these were contemporary from 809 to 784 b. c, 
it must have been in the twenty-five years between these 
dates that our prophet accomplished his mission. 

When Amos began his career the prophetic tide was rising 
to its height in the history of the Hebrew race. Joel was a 
little older, Hosea a little younger. Both were his contem- 
poraries, while Isaiah and Jeremiah were soon to come upon 
the scene. 

The occupation of Amos is described as that of a herdsman 
and cultivator of sycamore fruit. He speaks of himself as 
one who tended sheep. Whether he was a " hired man," or 
in a small way a cattle and sheep master on his own account, 
is unknown, though the latter is the more probable. He was 
not a man of the schools, neither was he connected with any 
prophetic family. He had received no special preparation 
for the exercise of his high calling. Yet he was by no means 
ignorant. The whole book shows large familiarity with the 
Scriptures. He had evidently been a careful student of the 
Pentateuch. If unacquainted with literature at large, he 
knew one book well. 

Amos does not claim official distinction as a prophet, but 
he does assume prophetic authority, in that God has taken 
him from following the sheep and given him a special 
commission : " Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." 

Amos was evidently one of those men whom God has often, 
in both ancient and modern times, called to special service 



164 ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. [Secoxd Quarter. 

not so much for their professional as for their natural fitness. 
The native qualities of Amos, both moral and intellectual, 
were such as to atone and more for his lack of schooling. 
He was a layman whose endowments were so marked as to 
fit him for the exceedingly bold and difficult task which it 
pleased God to put upon him. God often finds his best in- 
struments where we might not think of looking. He who 
took the lad David from his flocks in Bethlehem, only two 
leagues from the home of Amos, to make him a king, now 
calls another shepherd from the pastures of Tekoa to ordain 
him as a prophet. Both cases show that while culture is 
much, manhood is more ; and it often happens that the 
former is much easier found than the latter. 

Among the prophets Amos was what we might call a " free 
lance." He was hampered by no rules, subject to no official 
control, responsible to God alone. Freedom from conven- 
tional and traditional restraints gave him scope for a vigor- 
ous exercise of originality which more than compensates for 
lack of polish. He had that penetrating common-sense, 
that firm, practical grasp of moral distinctions, that rude but 
graphic and forcible speech, which distinguish men of power 
from those of mere culture. Rough and plain-spoken, aus- 
tere, righteous in life, terrible in denunciation, without fear 
and without flattery, a child of the desert, Amos was true 
successor to that most unique and majestic of all the pro- 
phetic figures, Elijah the Tishbite, who had stirred Israel 
so mightily a hundred years before. 

III. THE OCCASION*. 

The call of God to Amos to prophesy against Israel at 
Bethel, Gilgal, and other seats of idolatrous worship, was a 
sharp test of the man. No duty could have seemed more 
forbidding. He was sent as a missionary, a preacher of 
righteousness, to prophesy terrible things to a people of his 



Lesson V.] ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. 165 

own race, less than fifty miles from his own home. The 
humble shepherd was to face priests, lords, and prophets 
from the schools, to preach to a people drunken with pros- 
perity and morally blinded by corruption. 

Bethel was the chief seat of idol-worship. It was here 
that Jeroboam I., that son of Nebat " who made Israel to 
sin," had at the division of the kingdom set up the golden 
calves that the people need not go up to Jerusalem to 
worship. This was the beginning of that gross idolatry 
which was now the curse and was destined to be the ruin of 
Israel. Amos was called to prophesy at a time — the reign 
of Jeroboam II. — when the northern kingdom was in the 
highest tide of temporal prosperity known since the days of 
Solomon. Yet with all this outward pomp and glory, cor- 
rupt morals and daring irreligion were most shamelessly 
displayed. Luxury, licentiousness, dissolute habits, and 
cruel oppression of the poor were the natural concomitants 
of conscious power, security, and abundant wealth. 

The religious instincts of the people were debauched by 
idolatrous practices. In spite, rather than in consequence, 
of the unexampled material prosperity, moral decay was 
striking deeper and deeper ; religion grew more and more 
debased, and nameless wickedness among the higher classes 
prevailed like a distemper. 

It was to a people in such a state, full-fed with wealth and 
power, wedded to a fascinating idolatry, proud and arrogant 
to the last degree, that Amos was called to deliver a message 
of warning and denunciation which even a Savonarola might 
have trembled to utter. Errand how unwelcome ! To carry 
bad tidings is ever a sore burden ; but to be charged with 
the duty of setting forth God's own doom of the obdurate 
and unbelieving, requires a supreme moral earnestness and 
self-forgetfulness very rare among men. What a task for 
the herdsman of Tekoa, to hold himself unflinchingly to 



166 ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. [Second Quarter. 

his divine mission, and in the burning words of this book 
to display the nation's sin and pronounce its impending 
fate ! But Amos, unlike Jonah, meets the test bravely, and 
does not attempt to evade the Lord's call. 

How caustic, truthful, terrible, his preaching must have 
been ! How it pricked the consciences and roused the anger 
of the people, we may judge from the efforts of Amaziah, 
priest of Bethel, to have him banished. In his appeal to 
Jeroboam to interfere, Amaziah declares, " The land is not 
able to bear all his words," — not the only time in religious 
history when searching proclamation of the truth has proved 
irritating to wicked men. 

IV. god's merciful warnings. 
In prophetic vision, Amos has seen the storm of divine 
wrath rolling up, and hanging ominously over the nations 
surrounding Israel and Judah, — Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, 
Edom, Amnion, — and then gathering in one vast tempest 
of threatened destruction over the chosen people. The open- 
ing of this fourth chapter voices Jehovah's righteous indig- 
nation. It is a brief but sharp arraignment of the rich who 
grind the poor with their selfish exactions to gratify their 
luxurious tastes and depraved appetites. He then flashes 
upon them a glimpse of that terrible day when they shall 
be dragged into captivity like hooked fish hurried out of 
their home in the sea. Then the prophet indulges in a 
strain of keen and indignant sarcasm. The sight of their 
hypocritical attempt to keep up the rites of true religion, 
while offensively uniting them with idol-worship, made the 
prophet's blood boil. When he witnessed the zeal with 
which they brought their daily sacrifices to the altar, and 
the boastful ostentation wherewith they paraded their offer- 
ings, he broke forth in the name of Jehovah with burning 
indignation. " Go to Bethel and sin," he cries, in fine de- 



Lesson V.] ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. 167 

rision, " to Gilgal, and sin still more ; bring your sacrifices, 
present your offerings, make a show of your zeal in ob- 
serving ancient rites : but all this will not atone for your 
open idolatries, or arrest the divine judgment." 

Of course the prophet does not really wish them to go on 
in this mixed worship of Jehovah and idols. It is but his 
impressive and startling mode of warning them that the 
more they do it, the more certain will be their judgment. 
" Proceed if you will ; but it is at your peril." 

The prophet's tone changes. Irony gives place to sadness, 
reproach to expostulation. He bids them remember the 
severe chastisements which God has repeatedly employed to 
work their moral reformation. So far all seemed to have 
been in vain. The failure is made emphatic by that sad, 
wail-like refrain at the close of each judgment, into which 
infinite love and infinite regret seem to be condensed, — " Yet 
have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord." 

And now Jehovah recounts and interprets these chastise- 
ments, that Israel may from the past be warned of the 
future. Often the memory of discipline long past, the sig- 
nificance of which has been explained by the years, works 
in us a more salutary benefit than a present one. While 
the Israelites have persisted in sin, God has been punishing 
them in love to save them from irretrievable ruin. The 
divine warnings have come to them in five or six special 
forms, — famine, drought, blight, pestilence and war, and 
the earthquake. God permits no room for doubt touching 
the purpose of these calamities, but rehearses and interprets 
them, that the people may be led to sober thought before 
it is too late. 

The first judgment was famine. Nothing should have 
been more natural, when the earth withheld her increase, 
than to attribute this to him who giveth seed-time and har- 
vest ; yet they learned not famine's lesson. Then came 



168 ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. [Second Quarter. 

drought, — total failure of the latter rain, that fell two or 
three months before the harvest, the lack of which was fatal 
to all crops. Here and there, indeed, a kind Providence per- 
mitted moisture to gather, and the inhabitants of the parched 
and thirsty cities wandered, faint and eager, to the regions 
of rain. Yet Israel learned not the lesson of drought. 

Next blew the heated simoom from the Eastern sands, 
scorching field and garden, — when, moreover, if aught was 
saved from the blight, it w T as at once devoured by the palmer- 
worm. Yet they refused to learn the lesson of blight and 
locust. 

Pestilence followed, — the curse peculiar to Egypt, from 
which God's people had been promised exemption if obe- 
dient. In close connection with this, war, in which the 
picked youth of Israel's armies were slaughtered, their de- 
caying corpses poisoning the air with deadly stench. Yet 
Israel would not learn the lesson of pestilence and war. 

Finally broke that mysterious and unnamed calamity, 
whose frightful possibilities of evil brought to mind the 
overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Whether this was 
earthquake, conflagration, or lightning, cannot be known. 
We are only assured that from it the mercy of God saved 
them as brands from the burning. But to the lesson from 
even this combination of threat and mercy they had not lis- 
tened. God's warnings had been in vain. 

V. THE DIVINE ULTIMATUM. 

Something far more terrible yet is in store, soon to befall 
the guilty nation ; and for this, Jehovah now solemnly bids 
them prepare. It is the divine ultimatum, — God's last word 
before doom. Even this, indeed, is the alarm of love. God 
says, Prepare, make ready, put yourselves in proper atti- 
tude, — not necessarily as criminals for sentence, but if you 
will, as penitents for clemency. Mark Jehovah's significant 



Lesson V.] ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. 169 

expression, " Therefore" because of your impeuitence and 
hardness of heart, " thus will I do unto thee, Israel." But 
what is it that God will do ? Ah ! that dreadful word is 
left unuttered. He will not now disclose their fate. It 
must be something more fearful than aught that has gone 
before. The silence, the unwillingness to voice it, make the 
conception of what this secret, unspeakable judgment may 
be, all the more terrifying. 

This final appeal of divine compassion is rendered more 
impressive by the prophet's sublime characterization of Je- 
hovah as a Being of supreme power, wisdom, and glory. 
He would have them know that it is no idol-god who urges 
reform, but the Almighty, the Omniscient, the Maker of the 
universe, he who has framed the earth and fashioned the 
mountains ; who has created the invisible winds to do his 
bidding ; who knows the secret thoughts of men, and searches 
all hearts ; who maketh the light darkness, or the darkness 
light ; who is exalted above all that is loftiest on earth, so 
that the mightiest are subject to his sovereign will and 
power. Such a Being must Israel prepare to meet for final 
account. 

Yet were ever power and mercy more touchingly or impres- 
sively conjoined ? The Almighty God pleads ! Well might 
he say, "All day long I have stretched forth my hands 
unto a disobedient and gainsaying people." It is among 
the most beautiful of all the pictures of merciful love in 
that wondrous Old Testament gallery. In such ineffable 
compassion does the merciful God pronounce his final word. 



1. The most offensive kind of irreligion in the sight of 
God is that counterfeit religiosity which under the hypo- 
critical guise of zeal for God's service "borrows the livery 
of heaven in which to serve the devil." Sacred rites and 



170 ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED. [Second Quarter. 

unholy acts joined together make up the most horrible 
mockery of religion which it is possible to conceive. 

2. God has made it forever clear that he will not accept 
a divided heart and service. Elijah's word to the prophets 
of Baal declares God's mind. " If the Lord be God, follow 
Him ; but if Baal, then follow him." And Christ re-affirms 
the principle in New Testament phraseology when he says, 
" Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." 

3. Natural calamities are voices of God calling for na- 
tional reform. Yet sin makes men such dull learners of 
divine providences that God has to set them many lessons 
to teach them a little. 

4. God's most severe discipline, according to his own in- 
terpretation, has mercy as its motive, and salvation as its 
end. God's messages of warning to sinners are always of 
double significance, — warning and mercy ; the warnings 
being always for the sake and in the interest of mercy. 

5. We see the inevitableness of divine punishment for the 
finally incorrigible. God's justice must hold the ultimate 
retribution as steadily in view as his mercy does the possi- 
bility of reform. In the dealing of God with Israel all is 
condensed as to significance into that one expression of the 
apostle, " Behold the goodness and the severity of God." 

6. This whole passage is a wonderful manifestation of the 
patience and forbearance of God. What a volume of unex- 
pressed but suggested pathos lies in those oft-repeated words, 
" Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord." They 
have a solemn and ominous ring, like the boom of a bell in 
the midnight hour. How surcharged with meaning is that 
small word "yet! " All the sad history of God's ineffectual 
efforts to warn Israel into a realization of their impending 
ruin, like the yearning of a father for the return of wayward 
children, seems to be gathered up into that mournful sentence 
of a mighty but disappointed love. But think how over- 



Lesson V.] ISRAEL OFTEN REPROVED 171 

whelming also is the indictment of these words against 
Israel ! They sum up in one heavily laden expression God's 
love, anxiety, and mercy on the one hand, and on the other 
Israel's persistent obduracy, which has made that unhappy 
people the standing illustration of history in proof that 
"the way of the transgressor is hard." 



iLwfcon VI. spa^ 10. 



ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. 

A mos viii : 1-14" 
By Rev. D. F. ESTES, Hoi-den, Mass. 

THIS prophecy is a vision and a voice out of the kingdom 
of Israel eight hundred years before Christ. That 
country was then far advanced in its second hundred years 
of independent national life. Since the glories of David's 
and Solomon's undivided realm had vanished, disaster and 
disgrace had hy contrast not seldom- brightened their memory. 
Now, however, under the second Jeroboam, the greatest and 
most successful not only of the dynasty of Jehu, but of all 
the monarchs of Israel, its armies have been everywhere 
victorious, its enemies humiliated, its borders enlarged, and 
its wealth greatly increased. At home the nation appeared 
to the eye of its citizens to possess every needed element of 
stability and prosperity, in a strong government, domestic 
tranquillity, plentiful harvests, and multiplying riches. Look- 
ing abroad, there appeared no occasion for anxiety. Judah, 
the twin kingdom, had come off the worse in its last war. 
Severe defeats had repaid Syria for her former triumphs. 
Egypt was exerting no great influence on national politics. 
The shadow of Assyria was only just beginning to fall west- 
ward, where her foot should soon be so heavily set. Seem- 
ingly Israel might aspire even to be mistress of the world as 



Lesson VI.] ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. 173 

hopefully as Nineveh or Babylon or the village of a few huts 
which perhaps already clustered where Rome should one day 
stand. 

But along with apparent political and economic prosperity, 
sad religious and moral corruption prevailed. Apostasy had 
accompanied revolution when Israel was founded. For the 
Formless Presence in shining cloud behind the veil of the 
Temple at Jerusalem^ royal decree substituted the golden 
calves at Bethel. This break alike in place, in unity, and in 
form of religious observance shook the hold of religion itself 
upon the people, and prepared them for lapses at once fre- 
quent and gross into the worst of idolatry. Still other sins 
had followed in the train of apostasy. Dishonesty and 
debauchery were the natural results of material prosperity, 
and increase in wealth and luxury was uncontrolled by re- 
ligious sentiment and principle. As a poet has paraphrased 
the denunciations of another prophet, — 

" Israel dealt in robbery and wrong; 
There were the scorner's and the slanderer's tongue; 
Oaths, used as playthings or convenient tools, 
As interest biassed knaves or fashion fools; 
Adultery, neighing at his neighbor's door; 
Oppression, laboring hard to grind the poor; 
The partial balance and deceitful weight." 

To this people, victorious, prosperous, wealthy, avaricious, 
dishonest, luxurious, corrupt, immoral, irreligious, God sent a 
messenger with a message. In Judaea, near Hebron, at Tekoa, 
a little village, scarce more than a group of tents', from which 
went forth with their flocks the keepers of the little fine- 
wooled sheep of the region, dwelt Amos, a " flock-master," 
who was as well, when opportunity served, a gatherer of the 
fruit of the sycamore-tree. He has been called a " poor peas- 
ant " and " unlettered." The region of Tekoa would give little 
chance to amass wealth ; but it will not do to count him 



174 ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. [Second Quarter. 

ignorant or unintelligent. He may have known as much of 
books and of writing as David, another shepherd lad, and 
surely from Nature and from men and from God's Spirit he 
had learned much. Tew Hebrew authors — and that means 
few authors in any literature — can so read the eternally 
true in the familiar, finding lessons rich and practical in what 
had been the sights of everyday life, — the basket of summer 
fruit, the multiplying locusts, the battle of the shepherd with 
the lion ; and few express their thoughts in a manner at once 
so graphic and so terse, so combining both force and finish. 

Having received his message from Jehovah, Amos goes 
from Tekoa, his humble home in Judah, to Bethel, the royal 
sanctuary and royal abode of Israel. Here he denounces the 
sins of the nation, proclaims the displeasure of Jehovah, and 
threatens destruction. Tradition reports that the fearless 
preacher was mobbed and beaten, scarce escaping with his 
life. But he had done his work ; he had warned the people 
at large; and even King Jeroboam, whom he could not 
directly approach, had heard his message through the priest 
of Bethel. At some time, doubtless in quiet after years in 
Tekoa, he wrote out the denunciations and warnings of his 
brief ministry ; and thus its power has been extended all 
over the world, and has already endured more centuries 
than it may have lasted weeks at Bethel. 

The vision and the voice come down to us to-day. To us 
from the printed page Amos is telling what he saw and 
what it meant. "Behold," he says, "a basket of summer 
fruit." The relation of this sight to the present condition 
and future woe of Israel is not directly explained by the 
prophet, and to us it does not lie on the surface. Only as 
we dwell upon it does its original suggestiveness in some 
measure return. In Palestine fruit was the last crop to be 
gathered in. As when a New England farmer sees the last 
roots stored away, the sight is to him a sure token that the 



Lesson VI.] ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. 175 

year has run its course, and that nothing more is to be ex- 
pected from the fields, now fast growing brown, so the 
sight of fruit suggested to Amos, the mention of it sug- 
gested to his hearers and first readers, that the end of the 
prosperity of Israel was near. Additional force was given 
to this suggestion by a play upon words which we can in 
no way reproduce in English. The word here used for 
" fruit " was derived from the same root as the word which 
commonly signified " end." Hence the word doubly brought 
to the mind the thought that whatever was referred to was 
in its last days, and almost done and done with. The basket 
of fruit could mean to one who lived in Palestine and spoke 
Hebrew, only what Amos goes on to declare, " The end is 
come upon my people Israel;" and it meant this as much 
more clearly and strongly than the commentary which ac- 
companied it, as the vision is always clearer and stronger 
than the voice. 

The significance was of course primarily political. No 
nation could long stand which was so undermined with irre- 
ligion and honeycombed with immorality as was the nation 
of Israel. To be sure it seemed prosperous, it seemed to be 
ripening into established strength and vigor. To him who 
saw clearly and far, to the prophet who saw with eye 
divinely aided to penetrate show and sham and to perceive 
the real and the true, the apparent ripening of Israel was 
only incipient decay. The bloom of outward prosperity could 
not hide the rot at the heart. Israel was doomed, and 
speedily. Its very triumphs showed that the end was near, 
for they brought it near. The glory in which king and 
people alike delighted, the pomp and pride of general luxury, 
the ostentation of the wealthy, the glittering success of 
the schemes of the would-be wealthy, — Amos, though only 
a travel-worn sycamore-gatherer of Judah, a plain man with 
a plain message, saw it all to be no more than the last 



176 ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. [Second Quarter. 

fruits which could be gathered, a sure harbinger of speedy 
decay. 

Like a summer storm clouding the noon, disaster soon 
overshadowed the brightness of Israel's day. Jeroboam left 
an heir to his crown, but none to his greatness. Murderous 
usurper followed usurper on the throne of Jehu's line. De- 
feated armies, narrowing borders, lessening strength in money 
and in men, weakness at home, humiliation abroad, prepared 
the way for the Assyrians to subdue the nation and to crush 
it out of existence forever. Less than a hundred years after 
Amos came to Bethel, and was scorned and hunted thence, 
Shahnanezer came, and Israel was no more. 

Now it is to be remembered that the destruction of the 
national life of Israel was due to itself, its own faults, its own 
corruptions. It was due, not to the strength of Assyria, but 
to the weakness of Israel. No nation was ever destroyed from 
without. A people that is fit to live cannot be made to die. 
No might can crush a nation that is strong in itself. All 
the might of Syria could not crush the Maccabees, nor Aus- 
tria the Swiss, nor Spain the Dutch, nor the Turks Greece. 
When the wave of Assyrian conquest had swept Israel clean 
out of existence, Judah still endured. Idolatry and irreligion, 
luxury and debauchery, public corruption and private dishonor 
had ruined and spoiled Israel ; and the Assyrians only made 
an end of the fruit that was already rotten as well as ripe. 

Here is a lesson which is still important for all lands and 
for our own land. We may well stop to bethink ourselves 
that our prosperity is no certain token of our permanence. 
We are well advanced toward our second national centennial. 
So was Israel when Amos spoke. But Israel never saw its 
third. We boast of our immense territory, of our multiply- 
ing population, of our increasing wealth. Size is not certain 
strength, numbers and riches are not certain strength. The 
empire of Alexander fell to pieces by its own weight. Spain 



Lesson VI.] ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. 177 

was ruined by its riches. Multiply our territory, our popu- 
lation, and our wealth by three, and you might thereby 
divide our power by three, — yes, by nine. If to have more 
citizens we must admit worse citizens ; if the public service 
shall be party-spoil, and office shall go to the highest bidder ; if 
bribery, fraud, or force makes void the will of the people ; if 
corporate monopolies dictate laws, and lobbies attend to the 
enactment of them ; if public and private corruption saps 
the morality of the people, while ignorant superstition, blas- 
phemous atheism, or irreligious indifferentism undermines 
the foundations of our national existence, then the day is not 
far distant when it shall be said of the United States, " Behold 
a basket of summer fruit ! The end is come upon the people ; 
I will not pass by them any more," and we shall speedily go 
to the charnel-house of nations, where Turkey will soon lie 
down forever with the empire which preceded it at Con- 
stantinople, and with Borne and Greece and Persia and 
Egypt and Babylon and Mneveh and Israel. 

Our chapter points with special warning at one particular 
class of corrupting influences, — those which grow out of the 
greed of gain. Wealth may be an especial and pre-eminent 
source of social weakness. The dangers which beset the fabric 
of society in these days link themselves very largely with the 
production, accumulation, and distribution of wealth. 

" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 

Thus Israel proved it. Her great ones grew greater by 
crushing the poor beneath them. To be sure, estates and 
fortunes increased, and their possessors were lifted into 
greater honor; but as an iceberg for every foot which it 
towers higher into the sunlight sinks nine feet deeper into 
the unsunned depths of ocean, so the enlarged estates of the 
Israelitish magnates rested on intensified poverty and suffer- 
ing among the Israelitish peasants. 
12 



178 ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. [Second Quarter. 

The denunciations of Amos illuminate with wonderful 
clearness the unjust and dishonest practices which had be- 
come prevalent in that day. The poor man was cheated with 
false weights, alike when he marketed his produce and when 
he received his pay. The refuse of the wheat was fraudu- 
lently sold for food. Such distress prevailed, and such 
advantage was taken of it, that the needy was compelled 
to sell himself into slavery for a pair of sandals. The con- 
sequences of this greed fell on individuals as well as on the 
nation. In the disaster which overwhelmed the whole peo- 
ple the rich and great whose practices had caused it shared, 
and their fortunes went down in the universal crash. When 
the invaders came, the rich man had no immunity or advan- 
tage. He was rather marked for special ignominy and suf- 
fering. Terrible indeed was the calamity which fell on the 
grandees of Israel. We get some suggestion of it in the 
words of the prophet, mighty in their fewness, interrupting 
the far-echoing music of the false worship : "In that day the 
temple songs shall wail. Many corpses everywhere ! Cast 
them out! Hush!" All was fulfilled. Disaster, impover- 
ishment, affliction, death, smote the rich ones and the great 
ones of Israel when the Assyrian deluge rolled over the hill- 
tops of Ephraim. 

Here is a lesson which we as citizens need to consider. 
Greed, dishonesty, haste to be rich, may destroy the fabric 
of our society. While some have been amassing great for- 
tunes at one extreme of the social scale, even granting that 
the standard of general comfort has risen, there has also 
been deepening distress of bitter poverty at the other ex- 
treme. There are shining examples of business integrity in 
every city ; there are men in every town as worthy to shine, 
because their dealings are as honorable : but where are there 
lacking those whose knavish dishonesty is curbed only by 
fear of the law, — too lax in its provisions, and laxer yet in 



Lesson VI.] ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. 179 

its enforcement ? Talk about selling the refuse of the wheat! 
What is not now adulterated, and that with poisons ? Tax- 
dodging has become a fine art, and perjury in business affi- 
davits too common for comment. Speculation even in the 
necessaries of life has. grown, beyond a wrong to individuals 
and classes, to be a menace to our national prosperity. What 
will be the result ? If the growth of vast fortunes and 
estates is regarded with popular and legislative favor, and 
government and society and church are deaf to the cries and 
indifferent to the struggles of honest poverty, sinking deeper 
into abject and hopeless pauperism ; if ostentation, luxury, 
and extravagance replace our old-time simplicity, frugality, 
and economy ; if the craze to be speedily immensely rich 
fevers the blood of the whole people ; if fraud, illegal or 
legalized, if gambling in lotteries and in futures, if cor- 
ners and stock-watering, if dishonesty, in short, in all its 
forms, continues to increase; if thus such sins as ruined 
Israel taint our business and social life ever deeper and 
deeper, — then the basket of summer fruit will become sym- 
bol as apt for us as it was for them; the end cannot be 
far off. 

The end may not come, to be sure, in a political catas- 
trophe of subjugation by a foreign conqueror. It came not 
thus to France a century ago, when the social fabric was 
overturned, and the wrongs of ages were visited on the men 
and women of that day. We too may see revolution, riot, 
anarchy, sweeping away fortunes, levelling distinctions, del- 
uging the nation and the nations with disorder and destruc- 
tion. God grant that this be not the end ; that rather honor 
and honesty, uprightness and morality, brotherly love and 
mutual helpfulness, may prevail, and that thus our social 
system may continually grow fairer and stronger. 

We have looked far away at vices which are widely preva- 
lent, at influences which work on a large scale, at conse- 



ISO ISRAEL'S OVERTHROW FORETOLD. [Second Quarter. 

quences which it takes countries and centuries to exemplify ; 
but there is warning for individuals as well as for nations. 

Learn to distrust even the prosperity which seems the great- 
est, and carefully to scrutinize its cost and its consequences. 

" This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope ; to morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, 
And, — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, 
And then he falls." 

These words Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Wolsey when 
he found his ripest and richest honors to be but a dish of 
summer fruit, decaying in his hand. 

We shall do well to heed also the advice which the poet 
makes Wolsey give : — 

" Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee : 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
To silence envious tongues: be just, and fear not. 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's : then, if thou fall'st, . . . 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr." 

Such virtues we each in his place may make our own ; 
and then life cannot be a failure, and we shall have done our 
part to make not ourselves only, but our country, fit for 
prosperity which may permanently endure. 

To seek first to be right, then to seek to prosper, — not 
first to prosper, regardless of right, — is as important for the 
soul as for the nation. Let us each lay the corner-stone of 
our life work in the fear of God and in Christian faith, and 
rear the edifice in honesty, morality, kindness, and service. 
Then surely ours shall be " the blessing of the Lord ; it 
maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it." 



JUstfott VII. spa£ 17. 



SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. 

Hosea x: 1-15. 
By Rev. THOMAS D. ANDERSON, Providence, R. I. 

IT is a long period of the history of Israel which passes 
under the eye of Hosea. Entering. on his career in the 
reign of Jeroboam II., he sees the kingdom at the height of 
its splendor. It has extended until it has reached the limits 
of the kingdom of Solomon. It sways the people on the 
east of the Jordan, and counts Damascus among its tribu- 
taries. At this time Samaria sits, " a crown of pride on the 
head of the fat valleys." Soon, however, the kingdom is 
rent by factions, and under weak rulers is bereft of her 
dependencies, until the " glorious beauty is a fading flower." 
And before the prophet is gathered to his fathers in the reign 
of Hezekiah, this same Samaria, the crown of Israel's pride, 
is cowering alone before the " overflowing scourge" of As- 
syria, and bowing to the doom which the prophet, with no 
special keenness of vision, is now able to foresee. 

Why this decline among a people which has had so remark- 
able a history ? What has the prophet to say by way of ex- 
planation ? To this problem he addresses himself, with his 
strong faith in things unseen, spiritual, eternal. These eternal 
things are realities. They must be taken into the account. 
They alone are permanent, and only that which is based on 
them shall remain. " The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, 
but the word of our God shall stand for ever." This is the 



182 SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. [Second Quarter. 

moral axiom with which the prophet starts. But this "word " 
has been disregarded, contemned. " The people have asked 
counsel at their stocks, and their staff has declared unto them, 
and they have left off to take heed to the Lord." Therefore 
are these people like " a flower of the field, for the wind pass- 
eth over it, and it is gone." It is because of their disregard 
of eternal things, because of their defection, not so much from 
Judah as from Judah's God, that they have experienced so 
sad a decline in their national history. It is their sin which 
is the cause of their sorrow. 

This is the teaching which the prophet would impress on 
the people of Israel ; this is the principle he would establish 
in the passage before us. There is a connection between sin 
and sorrow, between wickedness and calamity, — yes, between 
moral transgression and physical, social, political disaster. 
We may define sin negatively as impiety, iniquity, unspiritu- 
ality ; but he speaks of it as a positive aggressive force, inflict- 
ing injury on the heart of the individual transgressor, and 
infecting also the external condition of the people, It " sets 
on fire the course of nature." 

In so emphasizing the influence of sin on external condi- 
tions, and in dealing so exclusively with its visible results, 
the prophet teaches a profound truth, but' not the whole 
truth. There are other results of sin than those which ap- 
peal to the eye and which may be estimated in the market- 
place. In the light of a fuller revelation, and with a keener, 
more profound moral insight, Jesus teaches that sin works, 
and works disaster, even when the external condition is pros- 
perous, and all that appears is respectable. Moral transgres- 
sion is always followed by moral punishment, though physical 
disaster may be evaded so long as physical laws are obeyed. 
The immoral man who obeys physical laws may expect phys- 
ical prosperity, but he will not escape the wrong he has done 
to his own soul. In the sleek, prosperous, and highly re- 



Lesson VII.] SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. 183 

spected Pharisee, no less than in the humble workman doomed 
to be crushed beneath the tower of Siloam, the moral law is 
working out its sanctions, and whatever the man's physical 
condition may be, the end will be moral disaster, — unless 
he repents. The connection between moral transgression 
and physical disaster is not constant and necessary. This 
caution Jesus is careful to give to students of the Hebrew 
prophets. We cannot always from the physical condition 
infer the moral character ; but still, the teaching of the 
prophet is true, that moral character has a determining in- 
fluence on physical condition, that as matter of fact sin 
reaps its harvest of sorrow, and wickedness brings disaster 
in its train. The moral nature in time shows the result of 
the injuries which it has received, and the heart which is 
opposed to God and transgresses his moral law will be liable 
in its headstrong course to transgress his physical laws, and 
thus incur physical disaster. 

It is this truth, solemn and impressive, even though partial 
and inadequate, which the prophet uses in order to arouse a 
people enervated by luxury and emasculated by selfish indul- 
gence. They turn away from the spiritual teacher ; they may, 
perhaps, listen to the social philosopher who sets forth the 
economic folly of unspiritual living. 

The prophet begins with a reference to Israel's condition 
as blessed by God. " Israel is a luxuriant vine." But he is 
" found guilty ; " " according to the multitude of his fruit he 
has increased his altars." Here, then, is the prophet's first 
charge against Israel on account of their sin. 

It perverts prosperity. Prosperity itself is not sinful ; it 
is a blessing which God promises to give, and which his peo- 
ple should seek to secure. It is far from the thought of the 
Hebrew prophet that misery is the normal condition of the 
servant of Jehovah. Jehovah delivers from Egypt ; Jehovah 
establishes Israel in the promised land ; Jehovah drives away 



184 SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. [Second Quarter. 

the enemies of Ins people, and crowns the lives of his chosen 
with loving-kindness and tender mercies. The inducement to 
obey God, to be faithful to Jehovah, is found in the reward 
he fives. He " shows mercy unto thousands of those who 
love him and keep his commandments." "Happy is that 
people whose God is the Lord." 

But sin perverts prosperity. It allows the material to 
eclipse the spiritual. With attention entirely engrossed in 
its present material condition, the soul becomes spiritually 
near-sighted, it "cannot see afar off." Luxuriating in the 
comforts of prosperity, greedily appropriating the " bread 
which perishes," it smothers the deeper yearnings of the soul 
for the " words which proceed out of the mouth of God." 
Like the man in the tropics who, abundantly provided for 
through the bounty of nature, restricts his desires to that 
which may be readily obtained, and fails to develop himself 
by more strenuous efforts after nobler ends, the sinner seeks 
to satisfy himself with the pleasures of sensuous enjoyment 
or of selfish ambition, and forgets his noble destiny as a child 
of God ; he sells his birthright for a mess of pottage. 

Again, sin perverts prosperity in failing to use it for the 
noblest ends. It fails to take account of the latent force of 
prosperity ; it does not appreciate its value. Value is rela- 
tive. The value of one thing is read in terms of another. 
The land is worth a thousand dollars. The picture is worth 
the time and pains expended by the artist. Ultimate value, 
however, must be read in terms of life. A thing has true 
value only as it ministers to life, may be transmuted into 
life. Prosperity, then, is to be valued as a condition of life, 
as a means of ministering to life more abundant. How great 
its transmutable value is, we do not realize until we con- 
ceive, with Jesus, how treasure on earth may be transmuted 
into treasure in heaven, the mammon of unrighteousness into 
friends in everlasting habitations. But this conception we 



Lesson VII] SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. 185 

shall gain only as, with Jesus, we see prosperity in spiritual 
relations. If our physical circumstance is not traced to a 
spiritual source, it will not be subordinated to a spiritual 
end. Here we discover the fault of Israel. " According to 
the goodness of their land, they made goodly images." 
Why ? Because the idol was worshipped as the source of 
blessing, and therefore the idol was honored by the offerings 
of those who were blessed. In the worship of the calf the 
spiritualism of the Hebrew religion was corrupted by nat- 
uralism. And just in proportion as men fail to see charac- 
ter back of property, God back of possessions, do they find 
their ideal, their motive, their inspiration in those "things 
which perish with the using," and cheat themselves out of 
"an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth 
not away." 

Having shown how even the general prosperity of a com- 
munity is perverted by sin, the prophet gives still more 
specific illustrations of his theme as he traces the influ- 
ence of sin on social institutions, and considers its effect on 
religion, on government, on society at large. 

It destroys religion, and takes away its inspiration. " The 
inhabitants of Samaria shall mourn over the calves of Beth- 
aven, and the priests thereof, because the glory is departed." 
Sin does not at once do away with religion. It would 
fashion religion to its liking ; but in this transformation the 
essence of religion evaporates. So it was at least in Israel. 
" Feasts, new moons, sabbaths, and solemn observances " 
were still celebrated. But all this is external, it is custom- 
ary, it is too often perfunctory. Tn perfunctory religion 
there is nothing to take hold of and mould the man. There 
is no meditation on high truths, there is no aspiration after 
noble ideals, there is no endeavor to realize holy purposes and 
to execute righteous deeds. The knees may bend, the head 
may bow, the blood of the victim may flow, and its body be 



186 SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. [Secoxd Qlakter. 

burned in sacrifice ; but the mind is not awakened, the heart 
is not stirred, the man is not inspired. There is no religious 
enthusiasm kindling the fires of devotion, there is no relig- 
ious sentiment making new heroes in defence of their altars. 
For when a nation fails to honor character more than condi- 
tion, to exalt eternal verities above temporary advantage, to 
heed the pealing tones of the eternal moral law rather than 
the siren notes of fickle circumstance, — in a word, to place 
the service of God above the service of self, — then the noble 
earnestness of religious enthusiasm is lost, the throne re- 
ceives no help from the sanctuary, the altars call forth no 
heroic devotion in their own defence, and the people readily 
succumb to any strong invader. " The thorn and the thistle 
shall come up on their altars, and they shall say to the 
mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us." A calf, 
the work of man's hands, cannot defend a nation, and " it 
shall be carried to Assyria for a present." " The high-places 
also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed." 

Turning his attention from the religious to the political 
consequences of sin, the prophet teaches that, — 

It invalidates government. There is profound pathos in 
the cry of the people : " We have no king, for we fear not 
the Lord; and the king, what can he do for us?" The 
deepest conditions of national prosperity are not of man's 
creation, not determined by human legislators. Nations rise 
and fall. They come to the zenith of their greatness and 
decline. Their successors study their history, investigate the 
conditions of their greatness, the causes of their decline, and 
learn that even in spite of legislation, in spite of desperate 
struggles, sometimes heroic though misdirected, the nations 
were influenced by currents and tendencies which they did 
not set in motion, and which they were incompetent en- 
tirely to control. These movements — tendencies, as they 
are called in modern terminology — are by the deep in- 



Lesson VII] SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. 187 

sight of the Hebrew prophet conceived as the personal 
activity of Jehovah. There is an eternal plan, there is a 
holy and gracious purpose ; and for the perfection of this 
plan, the consummation of this purpose, the power of the 
Almighty comes into operation. This power rolls in as a 
mighty flood; and if any human potentate, insolent in his 
sin, determines to resist its onward flow, that "king is cut 
off as foam " — or, better, as a chip, or a broken twig — 
" upon the water." 

The political intercourse of men is conditioned on eternal 
principles of right, and nations as well as men must act in 
truth. We must " speak truth, for we are members one of 
another." When a nation thinks that it may pass " words " 
which have no sterling value, — when in its representative 
it speaks " vain words, swearing falsely in making cove- 
nants," — it needs to learn that, in this universe of God, 
truth is final arbiter. If lying words have been sown, 
" judgments will spring up like hemlock [or darnel] in the 
furrows of the field." That which finally brought the As- 
syrian conqueror against the capital of Israel was the dis- 
covery that Samaria was breaking faith with him and carry- 
ing on secret negotiations with the king of Egypt. God 
has so constituted society that lying words produce a har- 
vest of judgments, and in the mighty movement of God's 
eternal purpose an iniquitous king is whisked away as 
easily as the freshet carries off the twig broken from the 
decaying tree. "The nation and kingdom that will not 
serve thee shall perish ; yea, those nations shall be ut- 
terly wasted." So speaks the ancient prophet; so speaks 
the modern historian. 

Yet once more the prophet gives illustration of the bane 
of sin. 

It emasculates society. " Ephraim shall receive shame, and 
Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel." It is a pitiable 



188 SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. [Second Quarteu. 

picture which Amos and Hosea paint of society in Samaria. 
Appetite reigns, drunkenness abounds, licentiousness and 
cruelty follow in the train. " Even as they did not like to 
retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a 
reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." 
The very indulgence which sin practises defeats its own 
object. The fibre of the muscle is relaxed, the vigor of the 
mind is gone ; patience, courage, hope, have fled with faith ; 
and the people lie supine, weak, inert. 

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Banish 
the unseen from the mind, discard the demands of righteous- 
ness, deny the ideals of religion, and deaden the sense of 
obligation ; let man cease to regard himself as a son of God, 
and his fellow-man as a brother, — and manhood is robbed 
of its glory, the home of its joy, and society of its security 
and peace. Is the picture too black ? It represents the 
final eclipse. Thank God, this has never taken place ; but 
let us heed the warning given in the dark penumbra cast 
upon the earth in Samaria at the time of the Captivity, in 
Rome at the time of the barbarian invasions, in Europe amid 
the degradation of the tenth century, and in France amid 
the horrors of the French Revolution. Efface the great 
truths of righteousness and love, as sin seeks to efface them, 
and man is transformed into a devil, and society becomes a 
hell. The emasculation is complete. Manhood is elimin- 
ated ; the brute alone remains. 

The prophet has taught his lesson : sin works disaster ; and 
this is true though the final result may be delayed. " The 
battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not 
overtake them," and yet "it is in my desire that I should 
chastise them ; the people shall be gathered against them." 
Nemesis dogs the transgressor. Her approach may be grad- 
ual, but her coming is sure. Let Ephraim beware lest, like 
" a heifer that loveth to tread out the corn," he shirk a yoke 



Lesson VII.] SIN THE CAUSE OF SORROW. 189 

that is easy and a burden that is light, only to succumb to 
a yoke that is hard, and to bear a burden that is heavy. 

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding 
small ; 
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all." 

The prophet has disclosed the disastrous consequences of 
sin, but his purpose is to establish righteousness. God's 
aim is not to curse, but to bless. This universe in which 
the seeds of sin spring up into a harvest of disaster is so 
constituted that in it the seeds of righteousness spring up 
into a harvest of blessing. "Sow for righteousness," and 
ye shall " reap in mercy." Yes, even in the hearts of the 
men of Israel, if subjected to moral cultivation, these blessed 
fruits will grow. Let them " break up their fallow ground," 
let them run the ploughshare of God's righteous law through 
their callous hearts, let them lay their inner souls open to 
the influences of heaven, and " the Lord will come and rain 
righteousness upon them." If the transgression of God's 
laws causes iniquity to be visited on generations of those 
who hate God, the true scope and end of those laws is 
manifest as mercy is shown unto thousands of those who 
love him and keep his commandments. 

But, alas! the prophet, like all spiritual teachers, speaks 
to heavy ears. The people have but little relish for right- 
eousness. He makes one more appeal as he seeks to arouse 
their disgust with the wages of sin. " Ye have ploughed 
wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity : ye have eaten the 
fruit of lies." Are ye satisfied ? are ye blessed ? are ye 
happy ? One fruit of lies is seen in the carnage of Beth- 
arbel, where " the mother was dashed in pieces upon her 
children." There is an illustration of the conqueror's tri- 
umph : will ye hasten the time of his triumph over your- 
selves ? But the end is not yet. Your harvest is still to be 



190 SIX THE CAUSE OF SORROW. [Second Quarter. 

reaped. Surprise and disaster await you. The rays of the 
morning sun will awaken the inhabitants of the city to the 
fact that " the king of Israel is cut off." " The way of 
the transgressor is hard." Be wise, therefore, and turn into 
the ways of Wisdom ; for " her ways are ways of pleasant- 
ness, and all her paths are peace." 

So speaks the prophet Hosea to the doomed city of Sa- 
maria; but they would none of his counsel, they despised 
all his reproof. Shall we, men of America, be as slow to 
learn the lesson, true then, true now, true eternally, " Eight- 
eousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any 
people " ? 



Cestfon vin. pip 24. 



CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. 

2 Kings xvii: 6-18. 
!By Professor IRA M. PRICE, Ph. D., Morgan Park, III. 

THE seeds of Israel's captivity were sown by Solomon. 
The introduction of foreign wives into the royal family 
was the first step toward Israel's fall. Solomon was com- 
pelled to provide for all the outward forms of worship 
demanded by these foreigners at his court. The manifold 
idolatry of Israel's neighbors was thus planted on Israel's 
soil. Its influence was potent, its power widespread. Polit- 
ical oppression, religious depression, a cold intellectualism, 
a shrivelled spirituality, combined to hasten the rending 
asunder of the kingdom. Jeroboam the son of Nebat cuts 
the die that stamps the face of all the subsequent religious 
history of Israel. To satisfy idolatrous tendencies, he set 
up at the extremities of his land, Bethel and Dan, the 
two golden calves. 

With the fourth dynasty, that of Omri, a new religious 
period begins. Omri's greatness and foreign popularity 
secured for his son Ahab alliance with the royal house 
of Zidon. With all the energy and fire of her strong char- 
acter, Jezebel persecuted and destroyed the prophets of 
Jehovah, and transplanted into Israel the sensual worship 
of Baal and the Asherah. For a time it captivated and 
enslaved the whole people. But the rise of the dynasty of 
Jehu was the fall not only of Omri's house, but of Phoenician 
Baal-worship also. Once more men bowed before the calves 



192 CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. [Second Quarter. 

of Jeroboam I. Gradually, however, the two forms of idol- 
atry began to assume the same level. Idolatry of all kinds 
was soon rampant. An earnest prophet, crying here or 
there, seemed powerless to help ; the inevitable doom was 
almost in sight. 

From a political point of view, Israel had seen some pros- 
perous times. Omri had secured a large domain, and probably 
a rich revenue. Ahab was less fortunate in his political 
relations. An invasion of the great Assyrian army forced 
a coalition of all the petty western nations for self-defence. 
In an inscription of Shalmanezer II. is an account of 
a battle between him and these peoples, which took place 
near the ancient city of Karkar. Among the enemies 
vanquished we find " twelve hundred chariots, twelve hun- 
dred horsemen, twenty thousand men of Hadadezer of 
Damascus ; two thousand chariots, ten thousand men, of 
Ahab of Israel." In another inscription of the same mon- 
arch there is mention of " Jehu the son of Omri " as one 
of his tributaries. Here Omri appears as the ancestor of 
Jehu. From this and subsequent references to the " land 
of Omri " it appears that the Ninevites regarded Palestine 
as the land of the once great Omri, and the then incum- 
bent of the throne as his descendant. The territory of 
Israel is mentioned as within the boundaries of Eimmon- 
nirari, a later king of Assyria. Israel attained its greatest 
prosperity near the close of the dynasty of Jehu, under Jero- 
boam II. It was brief. Pul, or Tiglath-pileser, captures the 
north, east, and middle of Palestine, putting it all under 
tribute to Nineveh. In his records we find the names of 
Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah, Menahem of Samaria, Ahaz of 
Judah, Pekah and Hoshea of Israel. 

The anarchy that cursed Israel during its later history 
seems to have been instigated largely by the monarchs of the 
East. In one of Tiglath-pileser's inscriptions, where he gives 



Lesson VIII.] CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL 193 

an account of his subjection of the land of Omri, he says : 
" Pekah their king I put to death, and I appointed Hoshea 
to the sovereignty over them." The Bible record, 2 Kings 
xv. 30, simply mentions the conspirator, murderer, and suc- 
cessor. The inscriptions tell us who stood behind, shifted 
the scenes, and directed the actors. Tiglath-pileser was abso- 
lute ruler of Palestine. Israel's power was broken, its army 
reduced, its land partially depopulated. Both politically 
and religiously, the fortunes of Israel were at a low ebb. 
Without national ambition, without religious hope, the nation 
was in the hands of a powerful enemy. Corruption, bribes, 
deceit, filled all homes, courts, and centres of trade. Polit- 
ical depression, foreign exaction, and private greed paralyzed 
all honest effort. 

I. THE CAPTURE OF SAMARIA. 

Hoshea seems to have been faithful to his Assyrian lord as 
long as the latter lived. But at the death of Tiglath-pileser 
and the accession of his successor, Shalmanezer IV., there 
was probably, as whenever rulers changed at Nineveh, a 
widespread revolt among their tributaries in the distant 
provinces. Hoshea, though religiously superior to his pre- 
decessors, despairs of the situation under the tyrants of the 
East, and appeals to So (Sabako), of Egypt, for relief. He 
withholds his accustomed tribute, thus openly defying the 
armies of the great king. His appeal to Egypt seems to have 
won for him only the enmity of the new king of Assyria. 
Although he is submissive at the first approach of the army, 
the Assyrian has only to learn the facts, when Hoshea is 
thrown into prison. Shalmanezer then " came up throughout 
all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it three 
years." He threshed the land right and left, taking captive 
and devastating, until he had driven the unsubmissive within 
the walls of Samaria. 

13 



194 CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. [Second Quarter 

Built, through the sagacity of Omri, on a projecting point 
of the mountains in the middle of the land, with natural 
protection on three sides, Samaria was the strongest fortress 
in the boundaries of the ten tribes. This point was the ob- 
ject of Shalmanezer's attack. With all the energy and skill 
at the command of the best army in the world, the siege 
began. The sacred historian, as if in impatient silence, 
passes over the events of the awful three years of siege. 
Only by comparison with other and similar distresses can 
we gain any conception of the terrible extremities to which 
the Samaritans must have been reduced. The biblical ac- 
count would lead us to infer that the first besieger was the 
actual captor of the city. But a voice from the ruins of the 
palace at Khorsabad dispels that illusion. Out of that 
magnificent pile of buildings come forth words of certain 
meaning to solve the difficulty. Shalmanezer laid siege to 
Samaria, and spent two years in the attempt to capture it. 
At this juncture 'a new king, Sargon, accedes to the throne 
and finishes his predecessor's work. Sargon, mentioned but 
once in the Old Testament, was one of the mightiest kings 
that ever swayed the sceptre. His inscriptions are filled 
with his victories. One, of chief interest to us, reads : " The 
city of Samaria 1 besieged, I captured ; 27,280 of its inhabi- 
tants I carried away ; fifty chariots of them I took for my 
own use, the remaining things I allowed my under officers 
to take, my viceroy I appointed over them, the tribute of the 
former king I imposed on them." From a parallel inscrip- 
tion we learn that this event took place in the first year of his 
reign, 722 b. c. It was Sargon, then, who took Samaria, and 
transported its inhabitants to the cities of the East, "and 
placed them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, 
and in the cities of the Medes." Although these places are 
not mentioned by Sargon in his own records, they are names 
familiar to cuneiform literature, and designate localities in 



Lesson VIII] CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. 195 

and near the Mesopotamian valley. Sargon distributed the 
Israelites in widely separate localities, both to punish them 
for their rebellion and to preclude any possibility of another 
uprising. They were forced to mingle with the foreign peo- 
ples whose idolatry and political oppression had been the 
means of their downfall. Samaria was fallen, depopulated, 
her glory reduced to dust ; the Assyrian was her lord. 
Her territory was henceforth to be the home of a mongrel 
people. 

II. CAUSES OF THE CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. 

After narrating the catastrophe of Samaria and the dis- 
position of its population, the writer enumerates the causes 
of the same. " And it was so, because the children of Israel 
had sinned against Jehovah their God, who brought them up 
out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, 
king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in 
the statutes of the nations whom Jehovah cast out from 
before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, 
which they practised." 

The Israelites practised secretly the idolatry of their neigh- 
bors, building high places throughout the land, upon which 
they burnt incense to Canaanitish deities. Obelisks of Baal 
and the Asherim were set on every high hill and under 
every green tree. These Phoenician deities were symbols of 
the generative powers of Nature. They were the objects of 
the most degrading and licentious forms of worship. They 
appealed directly to the sensual impulses, and thus easily 
corrupted and led astray Israel. Israel did as " the nations 
whom Jehovah carried away before them; and wrought 
wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger : and they served 
idols, whereof Jehovah had said unto them, Ye shall not do 
this thing." 

During this period of history "Jehovah testified unto 
Israel, ... by the hand of every prophet, and of every 



19 6 CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. [Second Quarter. 

seer, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my 
commandments and my statutes, according to all the law 
which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you 
by the hand of my servants the prophets." Jehovah had 
raised up prophets to instruct, warn, and threaten almost 
every king of Israel. Jeroboam's chief prophet was Ahijah. 
Baasha, the reckless successor to Jeroboam's dynasty, was 
threatened by Jehu son of Hanani. Ahab's " enemy ' ; and 
"troubler of Israel" was the rugged Elijah. The more re- 
fined and politic Elisha was helm to the ship of state for 
nearly half a century. Under his guidance the schools of 
the sons of the prophets nourished, and provided new men 
to uphold the religious life of Israel. 

Soon as the oral prophets had passed away, the minor 
prophets began their career. Joel, with the scourge at hand, 
calls Israel to repentance, and foretells with frightful vivid- 
ness the coming of the day of Jehovah. Jonah pictures 
Jehovah's readiness to forgive even the heathen when they 
repent. He cannot and will not do less for Israel if they 
turn from their sins. Amos, the shepherd-prophet, brings 
charges against seven neighbors of Israel. Their offences 
were small, but their penalty was great. Israel's offence 
was great, and neither famine, drought, blight, locust, pesti- 
lence, nor defeat had been effectual in bringing her to her 
senses. Her penalty would be destruction and captivity. 
Hosea, the weeping prophet, charges Israel with the sacri- 
legious desecration of sacred places. 

Thus with superhuman earnestness, undaunted courage, 
and spiritual fire, these heroes of right and of Jehovah in- 
structed, threatened, and condemned that careless, reck- 
less, idolatrous, and godless people. " Notwithstanding they 
would not hear, but hardened their neck, like to the neck 
of their fathers, who believed not in Jehovah their God. 
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he 



Lesson VIIL] CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. 197 

made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testi- 
fied unto them ; and they followed vanity, and became vain, 
and went after the nations that were round about them, 
concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they 
should not do like them." In vain ; Israel forsook all the 
commandments of Jehovah, and worshipped the host of 
heaven. This last had been particularly prohibited in the 
laws of Moses. Its prevalence in the later years of Israel's 
history became alarming. Baal-worship also existed in all 
parts of the land. 

Even to the most repellent species of idolatry practised 
within the bounds of Palestine, that of Moloch, the god 
of the Ammonites, the deity whose wrath was appeased 
by human blood, Israel and Judah had given a conspicu- 
ous place. Israelites burned their children in fire to this 
bloodthirsty image. Divination and enchantment took the 
place of prophecy. The people seemed to have sold them- 
selves to do all kinds of sin, as if they desired to displease 
God. Such were the primary causes of Israel's captivity 
and fall. " Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, 
and removed them out of his sight." 

III. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CAPTIVITY. 

The ten tribes revolted against Solomon's successor in 
order to avoid political oppression. But their anarchistic 
method of choosing rulers made them for a hundred 
and fifty years the victims of the most arbitrary kings. 
By their disregard of political obligations and treachery 
toward their conquerors, these self-willed monarchs ulti- 
mately brought upon their people the just rewards of na- 
tional rebellion, — captivity and servitude. Jehovah had 
permitted them to exist as a part of his chosen people, but 
they were under the. same conditions as Judah; their con- 
tinuance depended on their faithfulness to his commands. 



198 CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL. [Second Quarter. 

When all law and testimony were ignored, and Jehovah 
was insulted and defied, then mercy gave place to justice, 
prosperity to disaster, blessings to cursings, and peace to 
captivity. 

Since the reign of the powerful Omri, Samaria had been 
the capital and stronghold of Israel. It was the object 
of attack of every opposing force. It was the centre of trade, 
of worship, and of power. Samaria was the Jerusalem of 
the ten tribes, the Nineveh of Israel. It was the heart of the 
body of Israel. Its destruction was the death of every mem- 
ber of the body. The captivity of Samaria was the captivity 
of Israel. The whole form sank lifeless at the feet of the 
destroyer. The fall of the ten tribes was the end of the 
northern kingdom, the seceding element at the close of 
Solomon's reign. Two hundred and fifty years of idolatry, 
rebellion, and anarchy sealed their fate as a nation, — wiped 
them from the face of the earth as a blot and a disgrace 
in the sight of a holy and just God. 

This catastrophe is the strongest kind of corroboration to 
the truth of the warnings of the prophets. They besought 
and entreated Israel to turn from all evil ways. They 
warned and threatened, they accused and condemned them 
by the word of Jehovah. The threatened fate at length 
came to pass. With steadfast purpose, Jehovah brought 
upon his enemies the just fruits of their evil deeds. 

God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Disregard 
of his words, commands, warnings, and threats is just as 
blameworthy in his sight to-day as two thousand five 
hundred years ago. Godless living is still the bane of 
national life. Let each one of us, by the grace of God, so 
live that the golden text of the lesson may never be true 
of us, — "Because you have forsaken Jehovah, he hath also 
forsaken you." 



ilestfon IX. ^ap 31. 



THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. 

2 Chronicles xxio : 4~^4- 
By Rev. WILLIAM W. LANDRUM, D. D., Richmond, Va. 

THAT part of the reign of Joash embraced in the lesson 
of to-day is an oasis in the blasted desert extending 
through the reigns of his father and his son, which preceded 
and followed. The era is a gleam of sunlight bursting 
through gloomy clouds long overshadowing, and destined 
eventually to deluge the land in utter destruction. 

A little child is on the throne. Heavenly innocence lights 
up his features, and a holy purpose warms his heart and 
nerves his hand. The dream of the boy king's life — in- 
spired, doubtless, by Jehoiada, his kinsman and prime minis- 
ter — is the recovery of his people to the worship of the true 
God, and through religious revival as a lever, the restoration 
of the government to its lost position, power, and prosperity. 
After the removal of obstacles and the annoyance of delay, 
we behold the temporary triumph of Joash's pious and 
patriotic design. For a season the nation is awakened 
from the sleep and death of anarchy and atheism. Over- 
arching the land like the bow of God, bright on the bosom 
of the storm, is a theocratic unity among all the people in 
devotion and duty. 

The work of Joash was to repair the temple of Jehovah 
and restore the sacrificial worship. No sooner was Joash 
en the throne than " Jehoiada made a covenant between the 



200 THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. [Second Quarter. 

Lord and the king and the people, that they should be the 
Lords people." 

The bright side of Joash's rule, which we study, naturally 
divides itself into the man and his mission, — his motive 
and his method. 

I. The young monarch had to conquer, spiritually, his own 
heart as well as the heart of the people. 

To know Joash you must understand his liueage and en- 
vironment. These explain human character, and character 
manifests itself in conduct. Given one's ancestors and asso- 
ciations, and it is not a difficult matter to forecast the ten- 
dency of life. Emerson is credited with the saying that the 
first thing which a man should do who wishes to become 
good or great is to select his own grandparents, and next 
the place of his birth. Blood and the bolstering of natural 
surroundings will tell. The only power to overcome, modify, 
or restrain them is from God, — either directly through 
his Holy Spirit, or indirectly through his Word and its 
expounders and exemplars. 

Heredity did little for, but much against, the formation 
of a pure character in the youthful sovereign. Only by 
recoil from the bent of transmitted tendencies could Joash 
ever hope to be a whit better than the corrupt and cruel 
kings from whose loins he sprang. Athaliah and Jezebel, 
incomparably the wickedest queens who ever degraded a 
throne, were his grandmother and great-grandmother. 

The environment of Joash was Jehoiada. This great man 
was to his nephew like the Miriam who rescued and the 
mother who nursed the infant Moses. Jehoiada was the 
king-maker, the king-trainer. He was 'the power behind 
the throne," its defence and palladium. The spirit of the 
age was incarnate in Jehoiada, because his bosom was its 
birthplace. Underneath the guise of royal rule in camp and 
capital and the courts of the Lord's house, Jehoiada was 



Lesson IX.] THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. 201 

the soul of the whole national policy. The prince was a 
puppet, while Jehoiada was the real potentate and the trib- 
une of the people. 

1. Though no natural tie bound Jehoiada .to Joash, the 
great captain was, by marriage, the uncle of the helpless 
king. Jehoiada's affection secreted and his beneficent shrewd- 
ness saved the orphan when murder had marked him for its 
own. He was a father to Joash, discharging in high life and 
for a nation's weal a duty open to so many Christians in 
less conspicuous spheres in our own times. Blessed are 
they who learn how to multiply their lives and reduplicate 
their influence for God and the right, in the care, culture, 
and Christianizing of those fatherless and motherless ones 
whom a hard necessity brings begging to their doors. 

2. Jehoiada was the impersonation of piety. With him 
the Creator came before the king. The throne, in his eyes, 
was for Jehovah's vicegerent, and the realm a theatre for 
the exercise of truth, justice, and holiness by the "Lord's 
anointed." Above the temple and the palace, which were 
but signs and symbols, beyond priests and potentates, 
Jehoiada's eyes peered through the clouds to the seat 
of the Almighty. Treason to the throne he regarded as 
apostasy from Jehovah. 

3. Jehoiada's patriotism so blended with his piety that, 
though separable in thought, they were scarcely distinguish- 
able in action. God and native land were his watchwords 
in war, his pasan in victory, his solace in peace. God and 
country united, all blessings, he believed, would abound ; 
divorced, decay and death to the kingdom would draw on 
with swiftness and fatal certainty. 

4 Jehoiada's philanthropy is seen in his self-restraint in 
the hour of triumph, when vengeance would have thrown 
a less pacific nature into a sea of slaughter. The revolution 
which resulted in the enthronement of Joash, was so dis- 



202 THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. [Second Quaktee. 

creetly planned and executed by Jehoiada that but two per- 
sons perished, — the usurper, Athaliah, and the idolatrous 
priest. The government was well administered by Jehoiada 
during the minority of Joash. 

II. The mission of Joash was to effect among his people 
a genuine reformation. He " was minded to repair the 
house of the Lord." Its reconstruction he viewed as the 
road to religious revival and reformation. 

Destruction and reconstruction are alternating or syn- 
chronous processes ever manifesting themselves in the 
efforts of God's people. Joash is the resultant and em- 
bodiment of both these forces. 

Destruction is easy, and to wicked men only too natural. 
" The sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up 
the house of God ; and also all the dedicated things of the 
house of the Lord did they bestow upon Baalim." 

A child may shatter a statue which only the genius of a 
Pheidias or an Angelo could evoke from the rough product 
of the quarry. An idiot may fire a city whose wealth and 
beauty no wisdom can restore. A breath of slander may 
blast a reputation which a score of years built up by pain- 
ful degrees. Health may be destroyed in one night's de- 
bauch or exposure which no subsequent years of temperance 
and no practitioner's skill can give back. Nations, too, 
may consume themselves with sensuality and extravagance 
beyond all power of self-recovery. Destructiveness is the 
momentum of unrenewed human nature. 

Construction, on the other hand, and still more reconstruc- 
tion, is as difficult as destruction is easy. To speed a bullet 
through the brain is the deed of a moment ; to revive the 
dead body, impossible. To destroy the soul is so simple a 
thing that to do nothing, when the grace of Christ is 
offered you, is to die eternally. To save that dead soul, 
always beyond human power, requires divine omnipotence. 



Lesson IX] THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. 203 

Even God recreates with infinite labor. The Almighty made 
man out of dust with a word ; the Almighty redeems man 
at the unspeakable cost of Gethsemane and the ,cross. 

Euin total and desperate, utter and well-nigh universal 
wreck, was the wretched scene on which the boy-king Joash 
first opened his eyes. Apostasy and anarchy, always twin- 
sisters in guilt and blood, had done their work under the 
queen-mother of Joash's father. Beholding the desolations 
of Israel under the just retribution of an iniquity-hating 
God, we are somewhat prepared to understand and value 
the stupendous work of Joash's reign. 

III. Joash was unselfish in his motive. Reconstruction 
was aimed at by him from the lofty considerations of godli- 
ness and patriotism. 

The times called loudly for reform. The priests were 
apathetic, the Levites lethargic, the people spiritually life- 
less. Jehoiada's stroke of policy was for the time successful, 
binding all elements of society into one, just as its failure 
would have broken him into atoms. But the shouts of 
the populace on the coronation-day of Joash were not so 
much hosannas to God on the re-instalment of his right- 
ful representative as the obsequious plaudits of underlings 
sounded in the ears of position and power. The popular 
heart was still truant from Jehovah. The covenant made 
by Jehoiada between God and the people with all the im- 
pressiveness of solemn pomp was, on the people's part, 
the caprice of a merry hour. Not so with the leader. 
While the people were shallow and sensational, deep down 
in Jehoiada's heart was an irrepressible longing for the 
divine favor. This would come, he knew, only through 
national repentance and reformation. So Jehoiada put 
his burden on the boy-king's heart, aa.nN.ehemiah, at a 
later epoch, laid his on the breast of his alien sovereign 
in the exile. 



204 THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. [Second Qdakter. 

Joash aimed at a revival of religion. Revivals take their 
rise in the individual heart. The kingdom of heaven, just 
at hand to millions in Palestine under the reign of Herod, 
was first descried and heralded by the solitary John of the 
wilderness. A student's heart, aflame with fresh zeal at 
Oxford, kindled the dawn of the Wesleyan revival within 
the slumbering ranks of the English Establishment. 

Revivals of religion, if genuine, are contagious. One 
aroused soul, like a spark, fires another and another, 
till crowds become animated by the same holy purpose. 
Cities, communities, countries, are swept by a conflagration 
of holy ardor. 

Revivals naturally induce co-operation. The " Lord's hid- 
den ones," seven thousand strong, were ready to pledge heart 
and hand with the king and his minister. To a chosen few 
among God's people loyalty and love are constant quantities. 
Change with them means not relapse but reinvigoration. 
The "one hundred and twenty" of "the upper chamber," 
though the five thousand of Galilee were lost to sight, 
stood ready for Pentecost, and when the Spirit endued them 
with power, advanced to battle for the Lord as solid as a 
Greek phalanx and as alert and tireless as the Jesuits. 
So it came to pass that there was a waiting and expectant 
people in the reign of Joash. All had a mind to work as 
God inspired and impelled them. 

IV. The method of Joash for increasing men's interest 
in religion was the restoration of the Lord's house. Revival 
in divine life was both the cause and the consequence of its 
reconstruction. 

A dilapidated temple of God is painfully significant : it 
speaks volumes. The spectacle caused Joash to bid priests 
bring the money and the dedicated things into the house of 
the Lord, and with the proceeds of these he repaired the 
breaches. The priests, however, were not so earnest as the 



Lesson IX.] THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. 205 

king. So late as the twenty-third year of his reign nothing 
had been done. The priests were now called to account, and 
another expedient was adopted to secure the great end. A 
proclamation was made throughout Judah to bring to "the 
Lord the collection that Moses laid upon Israel in the wilder- 
ness." Jehoiada took a chest and made a hole in the lid of it, 
and in this all the money gifts for the temple were deposited. 
The people offered willingly. After a time the high priest and 
the king's scribe took the money and counted it, and gave it 
to those that did the work and that had the oversight of the 
temple. " So the workmen wrought, and the work was per- 
fected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, 
and strengthened it." They made no vessels of silver and 
gold till the temple was repaired, and then from the money 
left, these vessels were made. In this work the officers " dealt 
faithfully," though held to no strict account for the money 
they received. 

Eeconstruction, as has been said, is an arduous under- 
taking. The temple which David planned and Solomon exe^ 
cuted, in an age of unexampled splendor, rose in a general 
holiday on the stalwart shoulders of a young, ambitious, 
and growing people. The task was a light thing for the 
exuberance of national enthusiasm. But the temple that 
Jehoiada and Joash repaired, crept slowly up, little by little, 
as the insects in the Pacific build the coral islands. As the 
work went on, the people were depressed by the recollection 
of the sins which had wantonly wrought the awful wreck 
and ruin. But the work was all the braver and better 
because of the depression and difficulties which beset it. 

The great collection under Joash for the temple is a model 
for Christian beneficence. The nineteenth century must be 
the most generous of the ages, or it will prove recreant 
to its high duty as the great missionary century. Yet our 
churches are still ignorant of the biblical rules of giving, 



206 THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. [Second Quarter. 

or, where acquainted with them, are shamefully neglectful 
of their observance. 

Legacies are not the highest order of Christian giving. 
Shaftesbury speaks with contempt of " magnificent bequests," 
as though there were any real liberality in giving away 
what one can no longer keep or use for himself. " Munifi- 
cent donations," but not " munificent bequests." It is esti- 
mated that eight billion dollars are treasured up in the hands 
of Protestant Christians to-day in the United States, — a sum 
so great that it staggers our mental power to conceive it. 
And the majority of those who own the mammoth fortunes, 
if they ever mean to give, as duty demands, are willing to 
postpone the discharge of that duty till they are dead. 

Dimly shadowed in the people's offering under Joash, but 
distinctly taught in the letters of Paul, are eight rules of 
Christian giving, which we do well to fix permanently in 
mind. They are these : We should give by principle and 
habit, — principle as opposed to policy, and habit as opposed 
to an occasional spasm of generosity ; in the spirit of stew- 
ardship, remembering that all we have we hold in trust for 
the Lord; according to ability, for, as John Foster says, 
" Power to its last particle is duty ; " willingly and cheer- 
fully, for " the Lord loveth a cheerful giver ; " secretly as 
a general thing, as unto the Lord, and not unto men ; as an 
act of worship, kindred to prayer and praise: pastors may 
well say, at the time of the offertory, " Let us now worship 
God with our usual morning offering ; " in faith, venturing on 
God, as did the widow with her two mites ; and intelli- 
gently, as to the object, — not only that every object may 
be aided that is worthy of our pecuniary help, but each in 
proportion to its need. 

Apply the lesson to our own times. Mankind is "the 
house of the Lord " in ruins. We are under solemn obliga- 
tions to reconstruct this broken and shattered temple. The 



Lesson 1X.J THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. 207 

race is conscious of its deplorable condition. More, it knows 
full well where the blame belongs. The pagan world is not 
so much an object of misfortune to excite Christian pity, as 
a wilful sinner, weak and wayward, as the natural result of 
its own misdeeds. 

In the first chapter of his letter to the Eomans Paul argues 
the ill desert of every human creature, without exception. In 
order to do this, he shows that no excuse for the heathen's 
sin can be urged upon the ground of moral ignorance. He 
explicitly teaches that the pagan knows there is one supreme ' 
God ; that he is a Spirit ; that he is holy and sin-hating ; 
that he is worthy to be worshipped ; and that men ought 
to be thankful for his benefits. He affirms that the heathen 
know that an idol is a lie ; that licentiousness is sin ; that 
envy, malice, and deceit are wicked ; and that they who 
practise such sins are worthy of eternal punishment. 

America is a temple of the Lord in need of repair. Once 
our country was evangelical, Sabbath-keeping, Bible-loving, 
church-going, Christ-honoring. Of late years many influ- 
ences have conspired to change our national character and 
customs. Emigration, civil strife, illiteracy, political corrup- 
tion, the congestion of population in great cities, have each 
been a baneful factor in the unhappy result ; while to these 
must be added a foreign and false Christianity, with a 
Pope who despises the President, and a church which would 
enslave the state. Agnosticism, communism, and, most 
disastrous and alarming of all, materialism and mammon- 
worship, throw their portentous shadow over the hearts 
and homes of professed disciples of Christ, and lay on faith 
and duty their paralyzing hand. 

When viewed in connection with the vast wealth in the 
hands of its members, and the power for good which is 
committed to its trust, the responsibility of the Christian 
Church is appalling. 



208 THE TEMPLE REPAIRED. [Second Quarrter. 

Some may recall a striking incident committed to the 
New York press, a few years ago, by a deeply humbled 
minister. One of the leading members of his church was 
greatly distressed in his last sickness on reviewing his mode 
of life, reflecting upon the large amount he had spent upon 
his family, and the small sum he had given the Lord. The 
pastor endeavored to comfort him in every way. He spoke 
of his having given cheerfully and as much as others. He 
reminded him that the best of us are unprofitable servants, 
and must look to the mercy of God in Christ as our only 
hope. The troubled man found no peace or comfort, but 
grew more and more uneasy and distressed as his end drew 
near. At last, taking the hand of his pastor, he said, 
"Brother, I am going to the Judge, unprepared to meet 
him, because you have been unfaithful to ine. For years 
I have lived and taught my family to live largely for this 
world. We have denied ourselves nothing, but spent thou- 
sands on personal comforts and luxuries. When I gave 
hundreds to Christ and his church, it should have been 
thousands. My business energy, time, and money have been 
mostly devoted to self-pleasing and gratification ; and how can 
I meet my Judge and give an account of my stewardship ? 
I am beyond recovery. Do what you can to save other pro- 
fessors who are in the same current of self-indulgence and 
extravagance, which is sweeping them to destruction." 



ilestfon X. 31une 7. 



HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD OTG. 

2 Chronicles xxix : 1-11. 
By Rev. THOMAS S. BARBOUR, Fall River, Mass. 

THE scripture which we are to study deals with the 
reformatory work of King Hezekiah. In considering 
this let us note, first, the influences to which the king's 
action probably ought to be ascribed. 

The surroundings of Hezekiah in his youth seem, at first 
view, to have been unfavorable in the extreme. He was the 
son of a depraved father. He grew up at a corrupt court. 
The chronicles of the kings of Judah furnish but slight en- 
couragement to those disposed to regard mankind as in help- 
less bondage to circumstances. Good kings and bad follow 
one another in very illogical succession. It must be that 
there is a self-acting power at the centre of every personal 
life. Let us cling to the belief, too, that, however vast the 
moral inequalities of human lives may be, no life is allowed 
by the Creator to be altogether destitute of gracious influ- 
ences. In Hezekiah's case, at least, we can have no doubt 
that such influences were present. 

It is not unnatural to believe that his mother, presumably 
the daughter of Zechariah, the faithful prophet of King' 
Uzziah's day, was a woman of devout character. If so, what 
could she do in her grief at the conduct of her husband but 
that which so many a broken-hearted wife has done, — seek 
solace in the training of her child ? 

14 



210 HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. [Second Quarter. 

To the loving nurture of a mother was added the faith- 
ful counsel of godly men. Moral giants lived in those days. 
Micah was prophesying, Nahum was about to begin his 
work. Still another, a sublimer figure, is revealed by the 
side of the heir of the throne of Judah. Seven years before 
the birth of Hezekiah, a young man, gazing into the Holy 
Place of the temple, had caught a vision of the divine glory 
and had listened to the anthem which caused the very pillars 
of the temple-gate to tremble. During the entire lifetime 
of Hezekiah, Isaiah was fulfilling his office in Jerusalem. 
Tradition says that he was Hezekiah's tutor ; there can be no 
doubt that he was his faithful counsellor. Repulsed by the 
father, he would naturally turn with the greater earnestness 
to the son. Who shall estimate the influence for good which 
this greatest of the prophets — so devoted in his love for the 
nation, so fearless in his loyalty to truth, so immovable in his 
faith in God — would bring to bear upon the impressible 
mind of the royal youth ! 

But all this touches only the outer circle of the gracious 
influences by which Hezekiah was encompassed. It has 
been said, and there is a world of truth in the saying, that 
more than half of the environment of any man is — God. 
The God who is not far from every one of us was 
near to the young prince in the corrupt capital of Judah. 

We have good reason for believing that Hezekiah had 
not been unresponsive to his heavenly promptings. A work 
begun so quickly after his accession to the throne must have 
been premeditated. We must suppose that Hezekiah had 
lived a thoughtful life. Possessing in some degree the power, 
enjoyed so fully in this age of books, of determining his sur- 
roundings for himself, he had perhaps lived in closer intimacy 
with " David his father" than with his father Ahaz. He had 
seriously considered the responsibilities awaiting him. He 
had pondered the lesson taught by the varying fortunes of 



Lesson X.] HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. 211 

Judah, taught yet more powerfully by the unhappier history 
of the sister-kingdom whose kuell of doom was already 
sounding. He saw with clear discernment that it was be- 
cause God's people had " turned their backs upon him " 
that they had been delivered " to trouble, to astonishment, 
and to hissing." Before the hour had come that summoned 
him to the throne his mind was dominated by a fixed resolu- 
tion to work for righteousness. Wise and fortunate are those 
who on reaching the threshold of manhood's responsibilities 
find themselves fore-armed with a purpose so thoughtful and 
sublime. 

The character of the work to which the king addressed 
himself is deserving of attention. It was a radical work. 
Great as was the peril to which the kingdom was exposed 
from external attack, great as was its moral unsoundness, 
Hezekiah saw that all its trouble was rooted in ungodliness. 
The king's initial act in " opening the doors of the house of 
the Lord " was, it is likely, more philosophical than he him- 
self realized. Keverence for God lies at the basis of all that 
is trustworthy in private character and of all that is enduring 
in public order. The first phrase of the prayer taught his 
disciples by Him who loved righteousness and men as no 
other ever loved them, is a petition for the hallowing of 
God's name. 

Hezekiah's reform was also positive in nature. It ad- 
dressed itself not chiefly to the extermination of idolatry, 
but to the development of a genuine faith. When this 
positive work was accomplished, the necessary negative ac- 
companiment was sure to follow. Of their own accord the 
people went out to " break in pieces " the emblems of idolatry. 
The agency of Hezekiah was in this respect like that exer- 
cised by the Spirit of God in the sinful heart. When God 
wishes to regenerate the soul he does not at the outset 
uproot sinful affections, he implants love for himself. 



212 HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. [Second Quarter. 

Hezekiah's was a thorough-going work. The taunting 
charge of illiberality could not extort from him the smallest 
concession to the false religions of other lands. Not only 
image and " grove " — the sacred pillar or tree of Astarte — 
were to be hewn down, but the worship of the " high places " 
was to be destroyed. This was not in all cases idolatrous. 
Because of their fancied nearness to the heavens, lofty eleva- 
tions were by many ancient peoples used as sanctuaries. The 
Israelites, who, in view of the inconvenience of frequent visits 
to the temple, clung tenaciously to their local worship, had 
readily adopted this custom. Such worship was attended 
with grave peril. Many sanctuaries suggested many gods. 
Yet so popular was the custom of worship in the high places 
that even well-meaning kings hesitated to antagonize it. 
The record often runs, " Yet the high places were not taken 
away. The people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the 
high places." Of Asa and Jehoshaphat we are told both 
that they did and that they did not interfere with this 
form of worship. They probably destroyed such sanctua- 
ries as had become openly idolatrous, and allowed the 
others to remain. But Hezekiah adopted extreme measures. 
The brazen serpent fashioned by Moses in the wilderness, 
and still preserved, the people regarded with superstitious 
veneration. Hezekiah declared that the image was like any 
other "piece of brass," and broke it in pieces. In this the 
reformer was bold almost to rashness. The taunt of Sen- 
nacherib, " Hath not Hezekiah taken away the high places 
and altars of Jehovah," suggests very strongly that some, at 
least, of the people were perplexed by the king's course as 
apparently impious. Hezekiah would not consent that even 
the germs of idolatry should remain in the land. 

How difficult was the mission to which Hezekiah thus 
committed himself ! Idolatry being so thoroughly estab- 
lished in the kingdom, so firmlv rooted in the hearts of the 



Lesson X.] HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. 213 

people, what out a faith rivalling that of David in his conflict 
with Goliath would have induced the king to set for himself 
so gigantic a task ! 

In the mode of procedure adopted by Hezekiah in carrying 
through his reformation are certain things worthy of notice. 
It is peculiarly gratifying to observe that he acted promptly. 
The die was cast. In the first month of his reign, Hezekiah, 
like Abraham, who, when bidden to offer Isaac, " rose up early 
in the morning, . . . and went to the place of which God had 
told him," was wise in allowing himself no time for hesitation. 
Delay never softens the hard aspects of duty or lessens its 
difficulties. Particularly when called into new surroundings 
may one wisely remember Hezekiah's example. Tor commit- 
ting one's self to the service of Christ, no other time is so 
favorable as the first year, the first month, the first day, of 
one's entrance upon a new sort or period of life. 

It is instructive to notice that Hezekiah engaged person- 
ally in the work of reform. He did not commit it all to sub- 
alterns. To him no duties of royalty seemed more honorable 
or important than those connected with the maintenance of 
Jehovah's cause. It is a lesson to men in these modern times. 
Depend upon it, the secular employments of the busiest life 
cannot safely be allowed to separate any man from personal, 
active participation . in work for the advancement of the 
kingdom of Christ. 

Deserving of special mention is the fact that in the prose- 
cution of his policy Hezekiah relied chiefly upon moral influ- 
ences. He might have compelled, but he chose rather to 
persuade. In this he showed the utmost wisdom. If the 
reform was to be real, the hearts of the people must be en- 
listed in it. In this, too, we read a lesson that is of value in 
our modern day. Civil law can at best do but little toward 
genuinely reforming men from evil ways. Helpful and need- 
ful it may indeed be for the protection of the weak ; but let it. 



214 HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. [Second Quarter. 

never be forgotten that there can be no genuine and perma- 
nent uplifting of society except as the moral forces embodied 
in Christianity are made to take hold of the consciences and 
wills of men. 

"We are, finally, prepared to inquire what results were 
effected by the king's determined effort. 

The immediate outcome was most gratifying and most 
wonderful. The officers of religion responded, — the priests 
somewhat slowly, but the Levites with all their hearts. The 
people did the same. The nation felt to its utmost limits 
the electric thrill of a new life. The temple was re-opened, 
and a solemn service of humiliation and re-dedication to 
Jehovah was observed. Such a Passover festival was cele- 
brated " as had not been known." The crusade against idola- 
try waxed strong throughout the kingdom, and " a burst of 
spring-time," as Dean Stanley beautifully calls it, succeeded. 

" The thing was done suddenly," the record says. But is 
not the same true of well-nigh every successful reform ? A 
single generation cut the Gordian knot of American slavery. 
Mr. Whittier advises all young men to ally themselves with 
some righteous but unpopular cause, assuring them that they 
may hope to see it triumphant, however dark the outlook at 
first seems. Whatever form of government men may estab- 
lish, it is the few who rule. Public sentiment, strong as we 
often think it, is an exceedingly volatile thing. The crowd 
that to-day salutes the Son of Man with a hallelujah, may 
to-morrow, being brought under the influence of a few deter- 
mined murderers, cry " Crucify him ! " There is almost no 
limit to the power of a man if he have genuine conviction 
and energy of will. 

Those advocating a righteous cause have at least two ex- 
cellent reasons for viewing it with larger hope than external 
appearances warrant. Something in every moral being is in 
secret alliance with truth and justice. When a preacher of 



Lksson X.] HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. 215 

righteousness lifts his voice in the wilderness of this world, 
all that is noblest in the human heart goes out to meet him. 
The second reason is stronger still ; it is that by which the 
sacred historian explains the success of Hezekiah. " The 
Lord had prepared the people." We may reckon with confi- 
dence upon God's care over any work of his. Whenever he 
raises up a leader and commander for the people, he disposes 
a people to follow and obey. 

To the reformatory work of King Hezekiah must be 
attributed a result still more imposing, though to be sure 
not more important. It delivered the southern kingdom 
from the fearful peril by which the northern kingdom had 
been overwhelmed. 

To a strange device, truly, did Hezekiah resort in the hour 
of the kingdom's peril at the hands of a world-conquering 
power, — that of "opening the doors of the house of the 
Lord." But it proved effective. The cloud that had long 
overshadowed the land had now grown denser. Down 
through the defiles of Lebanon came the Assyrian host, — 
" the very cedars shrieking in terror." The Assyrian king 
seemed about to make a final disposition of Judah. What 
hope could the little kingdom cherish ? Syria, Hamath, 
Arphad, the Phoenician city-sovereignties, Ammon, Moab, 
Edom, Israel, had fallen. To the north of Judah not one in- 
dependent kingdom remained. There is the Assyrian army, 
encamped by the walls of Jerusalem. Hezekiah is " shut 
up like a bird in a cage." How reasonably might the Assy- 
rian exult, " Who was there among all the gods of the nations 
that could deliver his people out of my hand ? " But be- 
tween the camp and the city an unseen Form was standing, 
a Hand mightier than armies was stretched out, and a 
single night sufficed for the work of deliverance. In the 
morning, when the people of Jerusalem arose, looked out, and 
hesitatingly ventured forth, behold, where the camp of the 



216 HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. [Second Quarter. 

enemy had been they found only " dead corpses " ! What 
wonder that the historian should doubly emphasize the life- 
lessness of the once mighty foe ! 

Thus, even as the records of Assyria and Egypt bear wit- 
ness, the Assyrian conqueror met with his first great disas- 
ter. The people of Judah, amazed and well-nigh wild with 
their wonder and joy, were led to sing their exultant song, 
" God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved. God 
shall help her when the morning dawns." And thus it was 
demonstrated for all time that no external power, however 
strong, could prevail against a people loyal to Jehovah ; that 
Israel had fallen, and Judah was at last to fall, not because 
their enemies had grown mighty, but because they themselves 
had become corrupt. 

Is it not a painful thing to have to add that even so 
thorough a reform as this did not prove lasting ? Some of 
the people doubtless remained steadfast, but the most fell 
away. A new generation arose. Kings came to the throne 
who were of the house of David and Hezekiah only in name. 
Again the tide of idolatry and moral corruption overflowed 
the land. " Our faith comes in moments ; our vice is 
habitual," was true at least of the chosen people. What 
more forcible commentary upon the declaration of scripture 
that " the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them 
to do evil," can be imagined than is furnished by the his- 
tory of the sister kingdoms ! In Israel the development of 
ungodliness was almost without a break. In Judah the 
lesson is, if possible, even more impressive ; for though again 
and again, in the reign of some devout monarch, barriers 
were interposed which for a time checked the flood of 
iniquity, the people quickly beat them down, and swept 
onward to their final fall. 

Scarcely less painful is it to mark in the life of the reformer 
himself some things which compel us to abate a little the 



Lesson X.] HEZEKIAH, THE GOOD KING. 217 

admiration awakened in ns by his conduct on the whole. 
More than once as he watched the approach of the Assyrian 
the king's faith faltered. In emergency he for a time 
resorted to expedients unworthy a servant of Jehovah. 
And " in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of 
Babylon " he displayed vanity which, despicable in itself, ap- 
pears doubly shameful when we reflect that the visit of 
these men was subsequent to the overthrow of the Assyrian 
conqueror, and that their mission was to " inquire of the 
wonder that had been done in the land." Truly the best of 
men are but almoners upon divine grace. 

Yet we should be doing injustice to one whom God has 
delighted to honor, were we to allow even these blemishes 
upon the life of Hezekiah to blind us to the genuine nobility 
of his character. His life reveals much that is worthy of all 
praise and emulation. In a degenerate age he made choice 
of righteousness and the service of God. He won from the 
incorruptible historian a commendation accorded to but one 
other of the kings of Judah. He wrought for his country a 
noble service. The unique incident by which the closing 
period of his personal history is distinguished, was typical ; 
for even as little less than a third of the years of Hezekiah's 
life were a gift of God in answer to the king's prayer, so 
little less than a third of the years of the life of the king- 
dom was a gift of God in response to Hezekiah's reformatory 
work. 



ilcstfon XL ]f|une U. 



THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. 

2 Chronicles xxxio : 14-33. 
By Rev. GEORGE E. HORR, Jr., Boston, Mass. 

LTNDER the reign of Manasseh there was a strong reac- 
' tion from the reforms instituted by Hezekiah. The 
worst excesses of idolatry and vice prevailed again through- 
out the nation. Manasseh was made a captive, and with 
great indignities carried to Babylon, where his name stands 
twice recorded upon the monuments. The reforms of his 
mature age, when his heart turned to God, did not strike 
deep root, nor was there much religious improvement 
throughout the nation until his successor, the young 
Josiah, came to the throne. 

During the six years preceding the incidents of our narra- 
tive, Josiah had zealously set about uprooting idolatry. He 
had made little progress, when one of those apparently trivial 
incidents occurred, upon which the fate of great events often 
turns, and straightway Josiah's reform received a marked 
spiritual impulse. That incident was the discovery in the 
temple treasury of a copy of "the book of the law." 

Whether this scroll was the entire Pentateuch, or that 
spiritual summary of its first four books which we call the 
book of Deuteronomy, — though a question of some impor- 
tance in Biblical criticism, — has little direct bearing upon 
the religious lessons of the story. Either supposition would 



Lesson XL] THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. 219 

meet the requirements of the record. The view, however, 
has gained large currency that the scroll discovered by the 
men of Josiah was none other than the temple copy of the 
entire Pentateuch, which, according to the rule laid down in 
Deuteronomy xxxi. 26, was to be put " in the side of the 
Ark of the Covenant." 

We must bear in mind that books were then few, and that 
long before the days of Josiah the liturgies of worship, com- 
piled from the Pentateuch, had largely taken the place of the 
inspired books themselves, just as now in the Roman Church 
the liturgies take the place of the Scriptures. The law itself 
was neglected until it was forgotten. That it came to light 
in the course of extensive repairs upon the temple, and that 
its value was recognized by the High Priest, is exactly 
what we should have expected. It was not an unknown 
book that was discovered, but a lost one. The king may 
not have been entirely ignorant of its contents, but when 
he saw and read the scroll itself it made a most profound 
impression upon his mind. 

We to-day are in some danger of losing the Scriptures. 
The fact that millions of Bibles have been circulated, and 
that the book has been translated into nearly every language, 
of course precludes the possibility of our losing the Bible as 
a volume of literature. But it is possible for the Word of 
God to sink out of our consciousness, through our indiffer- 
ence to it, as it sank out of the consciousness of Israel. We 
may also make so much of prayer-books and creeds, of sys- 
tems of doctrine and religious treatises, that the Scriptures 
themselves are seen only by a reflected light. Because we 
have been acquainted with the Scriptures from childhood, as 
we grow older we may fancy that we know what they con- 
tain, and leave them unstudied and unread. It is not un- 
usual in public worship for the devotional services and the 
sermon to come between the soul and God's Word. They 



220 THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. [Second Quarter. 

supersede study of the Scriptures, so that should one really 
set about searching the Word of God for himself, it would be- 
come a new book for him, a fresh revelation from God. It is 
not unusual to find men so wedded to traditional interpreta- 
tions, having origin in some theological theory, that when 
they read the Bible they are like one looking upon a land- 
scape through colored spectacles. Really open-eyed, open- 
hearted study of the Scriptures is not very common. Yet 
nothing can take the place of such study. Even Hul- 
dah the prophetess did not supersede the book. With her 
divine gift of insight she discovered the application of the 
principles of " the book of the law " to the occasion, as per- 
haps Josiah could not have done. He could recognize truth 
which he could not have discovered. But until we have 
an infallible interpreter of the Scriptures, every interpre- 
tation must commend itself to the personal judgment of 
those to whom it comes. Protestants must pass upon their 
prophets. No theologian, critic, teacher, or minister can 
have such authority with us as to take away from the low- 
liest his right and duty of searching the Scriptures for him- 
self, and of bringing all doctrines and opinions to the test 
of God's Word. All through the past there has been a con- 
stant tendency to make the interpretations and opinions of 
some men, who have happened to write books or creeds, 
binding upon the consciences of others. When this ten- 
dency rules, we are in danger of losing the Bible. It is 
our duty to assert our liberty in this matter, and to vin- 
dicate our liberty by conscientious, personal study of God's 
Word. Water that has been standing in a pitcher for a 
week we refuse to drink, unless we can get no other. At a 
fountain each wishes his own fresh draught. But in spiritual 
things we are wont to desert the fountain and to drink what 
others have drawn and bring to our doors in musty barrels. 
It is wonderful how, when one with a reverent, honest heart 



Lesson XL] THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. 221 

goes to the Scriptures for himself, a light gleams from the 
pages. God speaks to the soul, and then, for the first time, 
the man finds the Book. 

The fact cannot escape us, even in the most cursory study 
of this record, that the results of this discovery of "the 
book of the law " are parallel to the experiences of those in 
our own day who, in the deeper spiritual sense, find the 
Word of God. 

It lies upon the face of the narrative that this discovery of 
" the book of the law " gave Josiah a new basis for faith. 
He had been prosecuting his reforms in a noble spirit. His 
reign up to this time had done not a little for the moral 
elevation of the people. In all this he had been prompted 
by his perceptions of what was right and wise. The discovery 
of this scroll, however, gave him a divine authority for much 
that he had been doing. The king must have felt when he 
read this book that he was supernaturally strengthened in his 
great task of reformation. 

There are few of us who do not desire to have our various 
undertakings approved by those in whose sagacity and moral 
discernment we trust. If we cannot make the course of ac- 
tion that" seems right and wise to us seem so to any of our 
fair-minded friends, our faith in our own perceptions is in- 
evitably weakened. When one is prosecuting an unpopular 
reform, there come to him moments of supreme loneliness. 
•" Is it possible that I am right about this thing, and every 
one else wrong?" he finds himself inadvertently asking. 
The strength of the great reformers has not been that their 
stubborn self-will was enough to carry them against the 
world ; they have been men like Moses, who have " en- 
dured as seeing Him who is invisible;" they have been 
consciously doing the will of God. We see at a glance what 
an enormous power such a faith is. Ewald says that the 
discovery of this book gave a strong momentum to the 



222 THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. [Second Quarter. 

reforms of Josiah, which had begun to lag. It must have 
been so. Now this effort to destroy idolatry, for instance, 
did not rest upon the judgment or spiritual intuition of 
Josiah, but upon the Word of the Lord. Josiah undertook 
his work with a new heart; the Lord was with him. 

We have incidentally suggested here the broad distinction 
between our certainty of what seems to be true and our cer- 
tainty of what is vouched for as true by the Word of God. 
It is often said that truth is truth, and that Revelation can- 
not make truth more true. Socrates and Plato, for instance, 
give us many admirable statements of spiritual truth. Jesus 
was doubtless anticipated in some of his sayings by un- 
inspired men. It is therefore hastily assumed that the 
names of Socrates and Plato, of Epictetus and Marcus Aure- 
lius and the rest, may not be unworthy of mention, to say the 
least, in the same breath with the name of our Lord. Those 
who make such statements overlook, among other things, the 
fact that Revelation alone is the authoritative standard of 
spiritual truth. Spiritual intuitions and the religious con- 
sciousness are not final. The statement of Plato may be 
true, but our certainty that it is true rests upon a wholly 
different basis when the Scriptures declare the same truth. 
The difference between books of human authorship and the 
Word of God is that the former are "guesses at truth," 
the latter is a revelation of the truth. The former may 
be gold, but its fineness is uncertain ; the latter is gold 
the fineness of which is certified to by the Government of 
the Universe. 

We can hardly miss seeing, also, how this discovery of 
« the book of the law " enlarged Josiah's conception of duty. 
With the scroll before him, the true course of national 
.reformation was plain. The entrance of the Word of the 
Lord gave him light. When we first read this narrative, 
it seems as if knowledge of the contents of the book simply 



Lesson XI.] THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. 223 

disclosed the extent of the nation's departure from God ; but 
when we examine the passage again, we see that while the 
light that shone upon Josiah revealed the nation's sin, at 
the same time it illuminated the true path. 

The Word of the Lord performs this double office for all to 
whom it comes. It reveals sin ; it discloses the path to a 
better life. Men shun the light because it shows them to 
themselves ; but when one is willing to know the worst 
about himself, he. finds that the light he hated has brought 
him a vision of the ways of blessedness. Judah's true 
blessedness could not be found by neglect of the light. That 
made the national life progressively narrower, meaner, poorer. 
The knowledge that came through this book was to Josiah 
and to the nation what a flash of light is to a ship on a 
dangerous coast : the light reveals the rocks upon which she 
nearly struck ; it also reveals the safe channel and the course 
to the harbor. 

Personal experience testifies to this worth of the Scrip- 
tures. Few Christians cannot recall times when the truths 
of God's Word have come to them like a heavenly vision ; 
things were seen from a different point of view ; the great 
spiritual ends of life became clear ; sonship to God became 
real ; life itself received a divine uplift and impulse. We 
sometimes let ourselves speak of the commands and prohi- 
bitions of the Scriptures as restrictions upon the breadth and 
liberty of life. We think of a religious life as narrow, and 
of the life of the world as broad and free ; but the exact con- 
trary is the truth. God's prohibitions are not restrictions 
upon life, but protections to it. They mark the way to 
nobility and blessedness. Throughout the Scriptures God's 
calls to men are calls to blessedness. The revelations of the 
nature of sin and its penalties, the stern prohibitions and 
the almost heart-breaking warnings, are incidental to the 
great end of leading men to a noble, broad, and happy life. 



224 THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. [Second Quarter. 

It is the worldly life that becomes narrow, bigoted, sordid, 
self-limited, and slavish. It is the life to which God's Word 
calls us that becomes longer, fuller, finer, and that expands 
in the freedom of a sonship to which the whole wide uni- 
verse is the Father's home. David saw this clearly when 
in that matchless poem of praise to the law of the Lord he 
said, " I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy com- 
mandment is exceeding broad." It is broad in itself, and 
it broadens the life of the man who obeys it. It has been 
finely said that Wickliffe's translation of the Scriptures 
" lifted the lowly English roof to take in heights beyond the 
stars." That is what this Word of God does for the man 
and the people who receive it. It lifts, expands, and en- 
nobles life. It infuses into it the breadth and glory and 
power of God. A better gift than money, or ships, or armies, 
or famous victories, or commercial supremacy came to Josiah 
when in the scroll unrolled before him he learned the true 
path in which God called the nation to walk. 

The narrative also discloses another result that came from 
the knowledge of the truth. It illustrates the way truth 
enters a human life and recreates it. There was a deep and 
subtile affinity between the soul of Josiah and the truth that 
came to him in the scroll. It entered his heart, and gave 
him a fresh, strong wish to bring his own desires and pur- 
poses and the national life into line with the requirements 
of God. The narrative is a lucid comment on the declara- 
tion of David, " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting 
the soul." Again and again our Lord compared revealed 
truth to a seed. It is not likely that we have yet grasped 
the full meaning of the comparison. The more science 
uncovers the secrets of the seed, the better we shall under- 
stand the import of these texts. But evidently the promi- 
nent teaching in this metaphor is that just as the seed 
contains in itself a power which assimilates the forces of 



Lesson XI] THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. 225 

earth and air and water into its growth, so that by the hid- 
den loom of life in it the structure of plant is woven, so the 
Word of God in a human heart assimilates the forces of 
affection and thought and will to itself, and by its mysterious 
life-power weaves a new character. 

Christian experience almost universally confirms this. 
Once the Word of God was nothing to us ; but there came 
a time when the truth was spiritually found. It fell out 
that we freshly read the Bible, or that some truth from it 
reached us in a sermon, or a hymn, or a conversation, or 
started up in memory. Like Josiah, we knew that it was 
a message from God to the conscience. It stirred us to 
the depths. It did not seem so much as if we had found 
the truth, it seemed as if the truth had found us, and held 
us in its grasp. It awoke grief and shame ; but it also gave 
the vision of a true life, which we had never seen before. 
We were prompted to do strange things. We confessed the 
wrong we had done, we made restitution, we turned from sin 
and hated it, we prayed to God for help. New truths kept 
opening upon the mind, as the parting of clouds reveals stars 
unseen before ; and the heart at last came to rest in some dis- 
closure and conviction of God's infinite tenderness and love 
for us. The experience of Josiah, to be sure, is not strictly 
parallel to the conversion of one who has gone on carelessly 
or defiantly in sinful ways, it rather resembles the spiritual 
illumination of one who, before he has seen the lights has been 
seeking it. But all spiritual experiences are traversed by 
a deep inner line ; we recognize their identity. -The new 
desire that sprang up in King Josiah's heart after he had 
read "the book of the law," illustrates and interprets to 
us across the centuries the recreating, transforming power 
of the Word of the Lord. 

We cannot study this narrative with appreciation without 
at least two reflections. It shows the large importance 

15 



226 THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. [Second Quarter. 

to each one of us of our finding the truth of God. As 
the sunbeam falling across the floor comes from the sun, 
and in its path it is a straight line to the sun, so the truth 
from God's Word that falls across our souls comes from 
God, and in its path it is a straight line to God. Across 
spaces that seem to us immeasurable, from the unseen to 
the seen, this ray of light comes. It is the bond that binds 
this visible world to the city of the vision. That light 
shines into our hearts, and forms a tie between our souls 
and the final blessedness of the redeemed when we person- 
ally submit ourselves to obey the truth revealed to us. It 
is not enough to have the truth in our Bibles, in our ser- 
mons, in our Sunday-school instructions, or in religious 
books. We only find the truth when we obey the truth that 
comes to us outwardly in these ways. Then something in 
us that is deeper than the mind finds it ; it enters the soul, 
and becomes the pledge and the power of Eternal Life. 

And then, too, we see that the chief blessing we can con- 
fer on others is to give them the truth God has given us. 
Under the rule of the " practical " man our benevolence has 
been largely materialized. We have come to think that 
what men most need is choicer food and finer clothes, more 
spacious housing and ampler leisure. The man who protests 
that ends of life are spiritual, that man cannot live by bread 
alone, that the gift of a Bible may be an infinitely better 
gift than one of a loaf of bread, that communities need 
churches far more than they need soup-houses, is in some 
danger of being crowded to the wall. The record we have 
studied lifts up a voice we can hear. The experience of 
Josiah instructs us. The men who went to the temple 
treasury came back with more than money. That ancient 
scroll contained the Word of God. Those words upon the 
parchment that could be traced with a pen or uttered with 
the breath were the divinest things in Judah, and they were 



Lesson XI.] THE BOOK OF THE LAW FOUND. 227 

the most precious gift that could have come to Josiah or to 
Jerusalem. The best gift we can bestow upon another is 
not the gift of any material thing whatever. The best gift 
is a word, some words of God, some fragment of his message 
to our world, of his infinite love and his gracious call to 
blessedness, — words that find some of their interpretation 
in our own hope and faith and love. We cannot give any 
one a choicer gift than this. 



iLe**on XII. ifiune 21. 



I 



CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. 

2 Kings xxv : 1-12. 

By Professor SHAILER MATHEWS, Waterville, Me. 

N the days of Zedekiah Jerusalem was no stranger to 
sieves. During the brief reign of Zedekiah's immediate 
predecessor, Jehoiachin, Nebuchadnezzar had invested the 
Holy City, and departed only after the king had surrendered 
himself, his harem, and many nobles. At his departure the 
conqueror had appointed as king Mattaniah, the third or 
fourth son of Josiah, after changing his name to Zedekiah 
and binding him to loyalty by the most sacred oaths. The 
new king was a young man of twenty-one, in no way strong 
enough to rule a decimated people and an impoverished 
city. Yet the affairs of the little state grew no worse during 
the first few months of his reign. Nebuchadnezzar was 
too much engrossed in more important affairs to give much 
attention to a country that had been crushed almost out 
of existence, and whose importance, at its best, was simply 
that of being the vestibule of Egypt. There seems to have 
grown up little by little a new national spirit in Judah. 
Jerusalem began to hope that Babylon was relenting, and 
that it would be but a short time before the captives should 
return and the heroic Jehoiachin be reinstated on the throne 
whose safety he had purchased at so great a price. 

How Zedekiah regarded these possibilities, we cannot of 
course say ; for outwardly he remained loyal to his master, 



Lesson XII.] CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. 229 

kept his oaths, and even went himself to Babylon. But 
submission and embassies failed to bring the national hopes 
to realization. Nebuchadnezzar had not relented, and Zede- 
kiah returned to Jerusalem chafing under the humiliation of 
newly enforced oaths of fealty. From this time the influ- 
ence of Jeremiah, which had been considerable in the royal 
councils, weakened, and that of the war party increased. 

Hardly had Zedekiah returned when he was approached 
by ambassadors from various neighboring cities and urged 
to head a revolt. The young king hesitated. On the one 
hand, Jeremiah urged in the name of Jehovah that he fulfil 
his pledges to Babylon ; while on the other, Hananiah just 
as strongly, and with similar claims of divine inspiration, 
urged the policy of the priests and princes that he join the 
league of cities and form an alliance with Egypt. The king 
gave no answer for months. Jeremiah meantime grew more 
and more unpopular with the court ; the captives at Babylon 
plotted incessantly ; the hatred of foreign control, so intense 
in Jewish hearts, fanned the passion for war ; and at last, 
in wilful disregard of the divine warnings, Zedekiah yielded, 
entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Egypt, 
and with the rebellious cities prepared to throw off the yoke 
of Babylon. 

It was an impolitic, a fatal decision. Assyria had indeed 
fallen. Egypt and Tyre, Judah's old enemies, were now 
allies ; but the new empire was already mighty, its master 
in the flood of victory : while defeat meant to Zedekiah 
not, as to his independent predecessors, capitulation and loss, 
but the punishment due a rebel nation, — annihilation. 

Nebuchadnezzar immediately turned his attention to his 
southwest frontier. The conspiracies of the Jewish captives, 
and the poor kingdom of Judah, had been of little impor- 
tance ; but the combination of Judah with Tyre, Sidon, Moab, 
Amnion, Edom, and Egypt, threatened the permanence of 



230 CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. [Second Quarter. 

his conquests. He took the field in person. For a moment 
he seems to have hesitated whether to attack first Jerusalem 
or Kabboth of the Ammonites, and with the superstitious 
faith of the times looked to divination. In the vivid lan- 
guage of Ezekiel, who was doubtless in the crowd that 
watched the departure of the army, " The king of Babylon 
stood at the head of the two ways to use divination ; he 
made his knives bright, he consulted the teraphim, he looked 
in the liver." The priests declared for the road that led to 
Judah, and to Jerusalem he marched. 

The siege had but just begun when aid arrived from 
Egypt. The forces of Nebuchadnezzar were now in danger 
of being attacked while divided, and for a moment it seemed 
as if Jerusalem was saved. But Nebuchadnezzar suddenly 
raised the siege, marched rapidly to the south, struck panic 
into the Egyptian forces, routed them, and on the tenth day 
of the tenth month of the ninth year of King Zedekiah, — 
587 b. c, — his generals once more invested Jerusalem. 
From this time to the end of the tragedy the condition of 
the besieged grew more and more desperate. The Baby- 
lonian army closed ever more tightly about the city, until 
only the corner of the wall toward Jericho was left open. 
The suburbs were destroyed, to give room for the enormous 
mounds on which were built fortifications overhanging those 
of the capital. The battering rams and all the other kinds 
of siege artillery, with which Nebuchadnezzar seems to have 
been well supplied, beat incessantly upon the walls. Dis- 
tress increased within the city. Jeremiah, who continually 
advised surrender, has left terrible pictures of the condition 
of its inhabitants. The nobles, who in former days had 
prided themselves upon their fair complexions and polished 
skin, grew black and scrawny from hunger ; high-born men 
and women searched the dunghills for food; mothers de- 
voured their own children. 



Lesson XILJ CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. 231 

At last human endurance failed, and the city fell. 
Zedekiah, pursued by the forces that had besieged his 
capital, rushed into the arms of the troops stationed to 
intercept his flight. The wretched man was carried to 
Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, where were the headquarters 
of the invading armies. Nebuchadnezzar reproached him 
for ingratitude in addition to perfidy, and passed character- 
istic sentence. Zedekiah was forced to see his nobles and 
sons killed before his eyes, and was then blinded. Afterward 
he was sent a prisoner to Babylon, where he probably died, 
— reconciling in his death the apparently contradictory 
prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, that he should not 
see Babylon, and yet that he should die there. 

The rest of the story is soon told. Nebuzar-adan, the chief 
of the Babylonian generals, sacked Jerusalem, pillaged the 
temple, broke down the great walls, and drove most of the 
leading citizens into captivity. A few of the humbler people 
of the cities and many of the country-folk were left to till 
the ground and pay the inevitable tax. Judah ceased to be 
of political importance, the Jews disappeared in the exile, 
and Jerusalem became a desolation and a wailing place. 

Such is an outline of the catastrophe that led Judah into 
captivity. The Jews that came back from Babylon something 
less than seventy years later were to show, in their new zeal 
for the law and in their hatred of idolatry, the blessing that 
lay hid in their fathers' misery. This we cannot anticipate ; 
it will be enough for us to discover the fulfilment of God's 
word in the fall of the house of David. 

The final exposition of the teaching of history is always 
difficult, but biblical history yields itself so readily to the 
expositor as to add a peculiar embarrassment, — unreality. 
The records of the Israelites have been so overlaid with 
" accommodating " and allegorizing interpretation as to become 
in many people's minds little more than an inspired Pilgrim's 



232 CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. [Second Quarter. 

Progress. The land itself has given terms to our religious 
vocabulary until it is well-nigh impossible to realize that 
Zion was an earthly city, and that the Jordan is not the 
river of death. But we grow even more confused over the 
history of the people themselves. The Israelites have 
become a body of saints and sinners chiefly intended to 
point morals. Virtues and vices stalk, ghostlike, under the 
names of Abraham and Isaac and Esau. So great is the 
reverence — or laziness — with which the historical books 
of the Old Testament are read that it is only within the 
circle of special students that the historical sense is in the 
least serviceable. But it will no longer do to dwell con- 
tinually on the typical nature of Israel's rise and fall, or 
to make the nation the centre of the historical universe. 
The student of the Scriptures must learn to judge of 
Israel's history as he judges of any nation's history. God 
works in every land; no people are outside his control. 
Were there inspired men to set them forth, there are 
as many lessons to be learned from the fall of Richmond 
as from the fall of Jerusalem. But right here lies the 
characteristic inspiration of the sacred writer. His eyes 
were opened, and he saw the hills all crowded with the 
angelic chariots; to him there was no such thing as law, 
there was only Jehovah working his will in every deed 
of man. He treated events, not from the standpoint of the 
modern writer, but from that of faith. He was not scientific, 
but religious. 

How true and helpful such a method is, every reader of 
the Bible can testify. No one would exchange the constant 
recognition of Jehovah's presence in human affairs for all 
the philosophy in the world. But there is no need of such 
exchange. The modern conception of God in history is no 
less true than that of David and Samuel. God works by 
law just as certainly as by special providence. 



Lesson XII] CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. 233 

If we come to the fall of Jerusalem with the desire to see 
not merely a special judgment of God, but to gain lessons 
from the operation of what are commonly called natural 
causes, we shall discover three facts to which it was largely 
due. 

1. Bad economic conditions. Judah fell into the hands of 
the Babylonians because her kings had wasted her resources. 
David gave a united nation to Solomon, who in turn passed 
it, still entire, to Eehoboam. Under this its fourth king the 
nation was broken into two hostile kingdoms. The narra- 
tive gives the cause explicitly, — unendurable taxation. The 
glory of Solomon, his navy and palaces and harem and 
chariots, had been purchased at the price of great suffering 
on the part of the people. Had Rehoboam followed the 
advice of his older counsellors and lightened taxation, Jero- 
boam would never have become his rival, and the confedera- 
tion of the twelve tribes, none too strong at best, would not 
have wasted its strength in civil war. 

The unwise policy of the wisest of men was maintained 
by too many of his successors. The capital grew statelier, 
but the people grew poorer. Even under a good king, like 
Hezekiah, the wealth of the nation was drained to provide 
for the magnificence and the vanity of the court, while after 
the defeat of Josiah and the imposition of the Egyptian tri- 
bute Jehoiakim still expended money lavishly in beautifying 
his capital. 

In addition to all this the people suffered from rich com- 
moners. Isaiah is full of the oppression of great merchants 
and usurers. The Mosaic law of land-tenure seems to have 
fallen into disuse, and the wealthy built up enormous estates, 
joining field to field in disregard of the ancient landmarks. 
The interests of the poorer classes were sacrificed to monopo- 
lies in linen and flax ; indirect taxation increased all finan- 
cial burdens ; and, as in the Famine Pact in France, the 



234 CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. [Second Quarter. 

king and court unrighteously controlled the supply of 
grain. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that the nation grew daily 
weaker, and that society sank into the two antagonistic 
classes of the very rich and the very poor. Still less is it 
surprising that, in default of reformation, the kingdom should 
fall. Other nations have passed through the same crisis, in 
almost every case to the same end. Nothing brings calamity 
so quickly as iniquitous business regulations. Men will lay 
down their fortunes and their lives for their country, but 
neither imprisonment nor death can make them submit 
quietly to its oppressive taxation or compulsory sales or 
bad money. Judah suffered from so much bad government 
as to be utterly unable to withstand her enemies. The best of 
her kings seem to have failed in this adjustment of their 
needs to their people's capacity. As Oriental tyrants they 
owned their subjects, and gave little attention to what we 
now regard as one of the foundations of a nation's progress, 
— finance. 

2. Moral degeneracy. But back of the bad financial policy 
of the nation lay its moral weakness. For a nation whose God 
was Jehovah, the Jews were wonderfully prone to idolatry. 
If we except a few years of David's reign, there was not a 
moment, from the Call to the Eeturn, when Israel was not 
itching to run after strange gods. Solomon was a typical 
eclectic in religion, permitting heathen divinities to be wor- 
shipped by the side of his great temple. The reforms of such 
kings as Hezekiah and Josiah were short-lived, and served 
but to set in strange contrast the popular worship in the higli 
places and the groves. In fact, hardly had Josiah been 
carried to his burial when many of the leaders of Jerusalem, 
as if in despair of Jehovah's accomplishing anything in the 
face of the divinities of the Egyptians, openly turned heathen. 
No one can read the scalding sentences of Ezekiel upon 



Lesson XII.] CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. 235 

Samaria and Jerusalem without gaining a conception of the 
half-heartedness with which the Jews worshipped Jehovah. 

In this desertion of their God the Jews deserted all moral 
restraints. The worship of Thammuz and Astarte and Baal 
was licentious and degrading. The lofty morality that should 
have characterized the followers of the Mosaic code gave 
way to the love of Oriental orgies. ' Instead of trusting in 
Jehovah, Judah turned to the chariots of Egypt. The 
manly vigor that had belonged to the Israel of David's time 
was utterly wanting in the court of Zedekiah. As in Rome 
and Macedon in later times, the national character had be- 
come so depraved as to be quite beyond ordinary cure. God 
let decay eat at the nation's life for centuries, and then, when 
all other means were impotent, sent the Babylonians and the 
captivity. 

3. Disregard of religious teachers. Nothing is more 
dramatic than the struggle between the prophets and the 
kings of Israel. Samuel with the gigantic Saul cowering 
at his feet; Elijah defying Ahab, slaying the prophets of 
Baal, and running from Jezebel ; Elislia travelling up and 
down a half-converted land ; Isaiah outspoken and dying 
a martyr's death ; Jeremiah deep in the filth of his prison, 
— are but leaders in the noble army of prophets whom God 
sent to guide Israel through the paths of national success, 
in the face of the bitterest opposition. Each of them was 
faithful and spoke his message ; but his words passed un- 
heeded, or only excited anger and persecution. Neither 
people nor king cared to follow the. stern words of their 
religious teachers, except as they were threatened by some 
overwhelming disaster. Then, perhaps, for a few days or 
months, the worship of Jehovah was reinstated in its proper 
place, and the prophetical office was again honored. 

The unwillingness of the Jews to follow the teaching of 
their prophets was due in large measure to the nature of that 



236 CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. [Second Quarter. 

teaching itself. Tt would be a mistake to consider miracles 
and the seeing of visions the chief business of the prophets. 
Few of them were gifted with these powers. Their office 
was not so much fore-speaking as for-speaking. They were 
men who spoke in God's stead, and a study of their utter- 
ances will show that the chief objects with which they were 
concerned were questions of national importance. They 
were untitled, and often hated, counsellors of state ; and the 
advice they gave was by no means always religious, in 
the narrower sense of the word. The declaration of war, the 
anointing of kings, the manumission of slaves, the oppres- 
sion of the poor by the rich, — these are but a few of the 
topics upon which the prophets spoke quite as frequently as 
upon the matter of sacrifices and feast-days. In other words, 
the prophets dealt with questions of the day, with living issues, 
and dared to apply religion to the affairs of the world that 
now is. Had they been less searching preachers, their lives 
would have been more comfortable. Jeremiah might have 
gone down to Anathoth and died in peace, had he been con- 
tent to dwell on the beauties of righteousness in the abstract, 
and said nothing about the duty of a king's keeping his 
word ; Elijah might have had a deal more hopeful view of 
life, had he been content to attack covetousness and not a 
covetous king. Had Jeremiah, just before the fall of Jeru- 
salem, been content to speak apocalyptically of a Deliverer 
who was to come centuries later, the opposition to his words 
would have been far more surprising ; it would also have 
been far more excusable. The wickedness of a man appears 
in his unwillingness to apply God's words to special sins 
far more than in his indifference to heaven. Many a man 
who will listen contentedly to what he falsely calls " the 
Gospel," will express himself very vigorously against any 
preacher who dares touch on the employer's treatment of 
his workmen. 



Lesson XII] CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. 237 

Judah here is the type of the world. Had its king lis- 
tened to God's servants, the nation would have weathered 
its financial distress and been cured of its wickedness. In 
their words lay the only hope ; and Judah laughed at 
them and stoned them. Jerusalem, the Zion of David, 
became the execution city of the prophets. Judah fell, just 
as any nation will fall that fails to apply religion to national 
problems. 

We to-day are confronted with many of the same ques- 
tions that confronted and conquered Judah. The social con- 
dition of our people will sooner or later bring revolution or 
readjustment. Our one hope lies in Christ's teachings. If 
our religious leaders will take up the mantles of the proph- 
ets, and in endeavoring to fit men for heaven fit them for 
earth ; if Christ indeed becomes the King of kings and con- 
troller of business, — we may hope for a peaceable settlement 
of the difficulty that is so close upon us. But God help us 
if, neglecting his Word, we let affairs work out their own 
cure ; if our religious teachers deal only with the questions 
of centuries that are past ; if Christ's words are pushed into 
the mummy-cases of dogmatics, and Christianity becomes 
indeed mere " other-worldliness." 

The one great lesson of the Captivity of Judah is this: 
the fearless application of Christianity to living questions 
is the duty of both clergy and laymen, and the hope of the 
state. 



THE THIRD QUARTER. 



STUDIES IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



I.K8SOX 

I. July 5. " The Word made Flesh." By the Editor. 

II. " 12. " Christ's First Disciples." By Rev. Professor 

Bunyan Spencer. 

III. " 19. "Christ's First Miracle." By Rev. W. R. L. 

Smith. 

IV. " 26. " Christ and Nicodemus" By Rev. E C. Dar- 

gan, D. D. 

V. August 2. " Christ at Jacob's Well." By Rev. Professor 

R. S. Colwell. 
VI. " 9. " Christ's Authority. " By Rev. John Hump- 

stone, D D. 
VII. " 16. " The Five Thousand Fed." By Rev. Professor 

John M. English. 
VIII. " 23. " Christ the Bread of Life." By Rev. Francis 

Bellamy. 
IX. '.' 30. " Christ at the Feast." By Rev. O. P. Gifford. 

X. September 6. " The True Children of God." By Rev. W. H. P. 

Faunce. 
XL " 13. " Christ and the Blind Man." By Rev. P. S. 

Moxom. 
XII. " 20. " Christ the Good Shepherd." By Rev. Henry 

M. King, D. D. 



lUstton I. 31ul£ 5. 



THE WOKD MADE FLESH. 

John i: 1-18. 
By THE EDITOR. 

AWOED may be defined as " expressed reason." Brutes 
utter noises ; young children use tones ; men, as ra- 
tional, speak words. God too, the Supreme Eeason, has his 
Word. The Son, conceived as expressing the thought of 
God, is spoken of in scripture as the " Word," the " Word of 
God." This is his name when he is considered as existing 
before creation ; for even then he bore to the Deity the rela- 
tion of Thought -Re vealer, mirroring back to the divine mind 
its own ideas. He was Thought-Eevealer in creating the 
universe, for in that act he pictured to God's mind its own 
eternal thought-ideal in outward form ; and in the suste- 
nance of the universe he is the Ee vealer of divine ideas to 
man also. 

Most completely did the Son expose the Father's mind 
in becoming incarnate. All the fulness of the Godhead 
dwelt bodily in him. He was the embodied lustre of the 
Father's glory, the very image of his being. In all the char- 
acteristics of love and grace, those who saw Christ saw the 
Father also. He was God's Eepresentative. 

This is the pith of our lesson to-day : that this Word of 

God, who had existed through all preceding ages as pure 

spirit, by and by became flesh and entered into humanity. 

He became human in the broadest and fullest sense. In that 

16 



242 THE WORD MADE FLESH. [Third Quarter. 

mortal frame which passed up and down the Holy Land, now 
sitting wearied at the well of Sychar, now asleep in the fish- 
ing-smack upon Tiberias water, at last gashed, bloody, and 
dead on the cross, abode a self-hood at once divine and 
human, the two characters so blending that the single con- 
sciousness to which both reported could make out no line 
where the one ended and the other began. Jesus was per- 
fectly divine ; Jesus was perfectly human. 

Christians nowadays need to dwell most upon his human- 
ity. We propose no fresh proof of this, any more than of his 
divinity. Were that our aim we should detail not mainly the 
Lord's genuine experience of heat and cold, hunger and thirst, 
for bodily vicissitudes form but a small factor in the life of 
a real man. We should dwell rather upon his temptations, 
upon his racy sarcasm in those wordy jousts with the Phar- 
isees, and upon his peculiarly human liking for John and the 
villagers of Bethany. But Christ's humanity needs no proof, 
for it has been agreed to, with very insignificant exceptions, 
in every age, sect, and department of the Church. We wish 
to study these verses the more helpfully to see the deep 
significance of what we already believe, to get thoughts 
which the Holy Ghost may use to thrill us with a new and 
delicious sensa of the actual brotherhood of Jesus to us, one 
and all. Let us try to feel this. 

But if you do try, you will not find it easy. Obstacles 
will oppose. Foremost among them, perhaps, will be the 
sinlessness of Christ. How can the great Sinless One sympa- 
thize with a sinner ? I believe that a true view will enable 
us to see how even Christ's freedom from sin does not pre- 
vent the most tender and sympathetic relations between 
him and us. 

Christ never had the sin-produced experiences that we 
have had. He never was, as each of us has been, the subject 
of self-condemnation for sin. His conscience put forth no 



Lesson I.] THE WORD MADE FLESH. 243 

retributive energy ; hence the smart of its bite he cannot 
share with us. 

Nor did Christ ever have to resist evil with heart half in 
sympathy with evil. This dreadful doubleness of moral ex- 
perience, this fierce internal combat between the old man and 
the new, the blessed Christ never passed through. In us 
goodness must fight as a soldier who has been routed a thou- 
sand times already. In Christ it was a champion that had 
often fought before, and been dreadfully hard pressed too, 
but never once beaten. 

It is plain, besides, that certain low and grovelling tempta- 
tions beset most of us which Christ could never feel. It is 
sometimes asserted that a perfectly holy being cannot be 
tempted at all, that either Christ was not holy, or else his 
temptations were a sham. Not so. There is no necessary 
incompatibility between holiness and genuine temptation, 
and we feel such to exist only when we have in mind temp- 
tations of a mean and degrading sort. Christ, holy as he 
was, was tempted, or else Scripture is false ; but he was 
never tempted to imbrute his body with strong drink, or to 
lie, or to steal, or to be a hypocrite, or not to pay his honest 
debts. 

For all this, Jesus Christ knew with its whole ineffable bit- 
terness what it is to fight sin. He entered the contest with 
armor intact, but what followed was real war. And does 
not this towering truth put a heart of genuineness into our 
Saviour's brotherhood to us ? Must one have gone as deeply 
into sin as I to possess very sympathy with me in my strug- 
gles against it ? Need a runner in the race have fainted in 
order to know what powers o,f endurance it requires to run ? 
May not an old campaigner gauge the ache of the wounds he 
has seen, without being rent with them all upon his own per- 
son ? Yes ; and so can the sinless Christ enter into sympa- 
thy with me. We both attacked Apollyon, — he with stanch 



244 THE WORD MADE FLESH. [Third Quarter. 

weapons, I with broken ones. He beat the foe, I was beaten. 
Still my divine Comrade in the battle will not despise me 
because I fell. He remains my Comrade, though a better 
valor sustained him, and his contest issued in victory. 

Another block to our due apprehension of the Lord's 
humanity is the fact that while he was human he was 
something besides, — he was divine ; and since his compre- 
hensive personality is not compound, but absolutely simple, 
it is hard to analyze it and hold up either factor to the gaze 
so as to see its whole perfection and beauty. We have been 
schooled to do that, as best we can, with his divinity, be- 
cause this has been matter of controversy, and those who 
have maintained it at all have regarded it the chief essence 
of his being. It is so. There is no danger of our exalting 
the Lord's divinity any too much absolutely. Yet relatively 
we may. The personality being so spiritual, a transcendent 
element seems, in spite of us, to run through the whole of it. 
As in all the master-paintings of Jesus a supernatural sweet- 
ness and dignity possess the features, so when you try to 
fix your mind upon what is human in his character, a glory 
from the higher nature settles down upon the lower and 
makes all you see seem more than earthly. 

What are we to do? Shall we be content to think of 
him whom "it behooved to be made in all things like his 
brethren," nevermore as brother? Shall we regard the 
" Friend of Sinners " so named only to mock us ? Were the 
scriptural representations of the Lord's humanity constructed 
to deceive us ? And are we forever to deny ourselves the 
uplift of full communion with the heart of Jesus because 
it beats in part with a life that is not of this world ? God 
forbid! The Church has been doing this too long. Con- 
tending for his divinity, we have as good as denied his 
humanity. Maintaining his power to win us eternal life, 
we have forgotten how he can sweeten and exalt the life 



Lesson I.] THE WORD MADE FLESH. 245 

that now is. Half of our moral weakness and meanness 
takes rise just here, that we put Jesus too high above us. 
Far from seeming our Brother, he is a mysterious and in- 
credible Form, like some demigod of Homeric song. 

We perversely exaggerate the difference between the di- 
vine and the human, till it is no wonder that people who 
are strongly convinced of the one deny the other. The two 
are alike in nature. They are not diverse kinds, but one. 
God's being is of a piece with our own, for he is our Father, 
and we exist in his image. The difference is that he is in- 
finite, while we are finite. He is spirit ; so are we. Each of 
our faculties is a miniature of the like in him. The newest 
studies upon this subject — and they are the deepest ever 
made — are showing us that we have been too fearful of 
anthropomorphism in likening God to man. To think of 
the great God as actually personal, sensitive, and in some 
sense changeable, is not to accuse his nature of imperfec- 
tion, but rather to exalt its perfection. Not contradictory 
but most natural is this doctrine of Christ as the God-man 
bringing heaven and earth together, veritable Son of the 
Eternal, yet so near to us as to represent ideal humanity 
better than the choicest mere child of earth could do. 

Nothing is more vicious in making Christ's person seem 
strange and unreal than the false feeling, too common, that 
somehow his actions were determined by iron necessity 
laid upon him, instead of springing from free volitions of 
his own. Christ was not under law to a holy fate. He 
had his own probation to fulfil, his " charge to keep," as 
truly as Adam or any son of Adam. The purpose of God 
held no harder hand on him than is on you and me. He 
did right because he would do right. He refrained from 
wrong, not as prevented by the eternal fiat of God, but to 
answer the voluntary dictates of a pure heart. Let us not 
slander him. He lived better than we simply by the power 



246 THE WORD MADE FLESH. [Third Quarter. 

of a stronger will and a more perfect virtue, not because 
fated to be good. He was as free as you are. He might 
have sinned had he so willed. He would not ; he girded up 
his soul and freely spurned every evil solicitation. Oh, if 
we oftener placed Christ's probation before our minds as 
the experience of a struggling but victorious human being, 
and ceased fancying him to have been good because com- 
pelled, his religion would soon become more a reality to us 
than we have ever known it. 

Christ's divinity was in the background in other experi- 
ences than his temptations. Except in special crises of his 
Messianic work, he ignored it continually. I believe that it 
was always present and active, giving character to his every 
deed, however humble ; but the peculiar energy of it was not 
put forth always. When Jesus gave back life to the dead, 
or healed sickness, or read thoughts in the depths of men's 
hearts, then divinity acted ; but no special power from heaven 
aided him to bear weariness or hunger or thirst, or braced 
him for any of his proper probationary conflicts. In most 
of his career all that appeared was the mysterious, tender- 
hearted, holy man. He retired his formal divinity from 
view, that men might see and believe him human, as he 
was. Let us do the same, if need be ; it will not grieve but 
please him. 

To grasp this doctrine of Christ's divine humanity, of his 
full citizenship in this world as well as in the other, sup- 
plants many a vain conceit, common among Christian people, 
with a truly inspiring conception. 

1. The Incarnation was no afterthought of God, no appen- 
dix or codicil to the divine plan, but piece of God's eternal 
programme for man. Least of all can sin claim the glory 
of occasioning it. Guiltless humanity would not have been 
perfect humanity. It would have required to advance from 
strength to strength and from beauty to beauty, even as 



Lesson I] THE WORD MADE FLESH. 247 

Christ himself did while on earth ; and in this it would 
have needed his inspiration and guidance. Christ must have 
come sooner or later to stand upon the earth, had every 
human being, from creation down, been as holy as he. Jesus 
was not a necessity simply in order to atone for sin. Tn no 
event could our race have been complete without him for its 
head. Can any one suppose that God would have kept 
back his most splendid work simply because no depravity 
attacked our ancestors ? Does Satan deserve thanks for 
tempting Eve, that she might fall, and call for the Ee- 
storer ? Nay ! The second Adam was as truly part of the 
normal divine order as the first. Sin having appeared, 
his actual mission was of course changed. Now it meant 
humiliation, the cross, death, — all which the Son of God 
might have been spared, but for the advent of evil. But 
the Incarnation itself, the special personal effulgence of 
the Father's glory here on earth, the epiphany of match- 
less spiritual excellence in a human form, devout thought 
can hardly imagine not to have taken place. 

2. Again, the Incarnation accords with a true doctrine of 
the divine procedure in every department of creation. It is 
not, as many seem to suppose, a great exception to God's 
ordinary way of working, jarring with the methods of science 
and of history ; quite the reverse. I abhor all thought of 
a mindless or atheistic evolution : that is the belief only of 
ill-trained and unfurnished heads. But with evolution taken 
in the proper sense, as the gradual mode by which it has 
pleased God to bring things to pass, the Christian Incarna- 
tion-doctrine has no quarrel. Many of the thinkers who 
reason about Jesus as joining naturally on to the humanity 
which was before him, have been unduly censured. What 
they say, if understood rightly, is precisely true. Actual, 
practical humanity, whether ancient or modern, of course 
cannot account for the Supreme Man ; but of ideal human- 



248 THE WORD MADE FLESH. [Third Quarter. 

ity, of mankind as it existed in God's thought, and as God 
was little by little bringing it to manifestation, he was the 
perfectly natural fruit, taking his place upon the family tree 
as normally as Shakspeare or Henry George. 

3. Once more, no conception and no estimate of man- 
kind is adequate or just which omits Jesus Christ. We 
speak of humanity as fickle, frail, prone to go astray, sinful, 
vile, so many children of the Devil. Such speech expresses 
a truth when it refers to men taken as they come. Applied 
to humanity in the proper sense it is a stupendous criminal 
libel. Do not judge San Francisco by the hoodlums. The 
thugs are not India. And pray never commit the error of 
regarding the human beings to whom so many hard names 
can be applied, as comprising humanity. The true notion of 
mankind takes in Jesus. The actual value of humanity is 
common humanity plus Jesus Christ. He belongs to it as 
truly as Socrates, Gustavus Adolphus, or William Kemmler. 
He was no naturalized citizen of earth, but born here. In- 
dict the race as you will. You can set forth a very long 
account against it, — sad, serious, most compromising. One 
item is Ceesar Borgia, another is Captain Kidd ; I am a 
third, you are a fourth. Put them all down, do not omit 
any, black though the page may be. But, book-keeper, 
critic, censor of thy kind, I adjure thee by the sacred 
majesty of truth, write up the credit page as well ! Write 
Saint Paul's name upon it. Enter Judson there. Enter 
John Henry Newman on that page. Enter Marcus Aurelius, 
Alfred the Great, George Washington. But at the top of it, 
in letters of living light which at once God, all on earth, 
even the blind, all men, angels, and devils can read, write 
that Name which is above every name ! It belongs there, 
and it will go far to balance the account. I can never admit 
that sin is a good, or even a necessary concomitant of good. 
But this I believe, that a sinning humanity, with Jesus for 



Lesson I.] THE WORD MADE FLESH. 249 

its Masterpiece and Redeemer, is a finer thing than a sinless 
humanity with no Jesus could ever have been. 

4. Lastly, we have a right — yes, we are in duty bound — 
to allow for Jesus Christ in all our calculations about what 
humanity may hope to become. Do not despair of a family 
of rude children so long as they have a discreet and saintly 
mother. You defame the family not to account her a part of 
it ; she is in fact the main part. There is hope in praying 
for the state so long as it contains a remnant of godly men. 
They help to make it up and to give it its character. The 
rank and file of your army may be raw and timid. Never 
mind ; if their general is a Napoleon, victory is before them, 
and it will be the army's victory, for he helped compose the 
army. 

Many moral evils compass our modern society about. 
The outlook for progress is in various ways most discoura- 
ging. At some points our course is retrograde. Social and 
private sins, as contrasted with crimes of violence, are un- 
doubtedly on the increase. Thinking of the human race, its 
vices and its tendencies in our time, the sage queries to 
himself oftener than he likes to say it loud, — 

" Is the great flock 
For the good Balder, or the evil Lok ? " 

In numerous of its worst phases, our age exactly resembles 
that which preceded the breaking up of the old Roman 
Empire. Many thoughtful persons are at this moment in 
terror of some signal social paroxysm like that. And it may 
come. God may please again to purify the air by a cyclone, 
or to heave up continents of rich loam by an earthquake. 
But there is one incalculable difference between the civilized 
society of to-day and that of the ancient world when about to 
be dissolved. We have Christ, and they had not. Humanity 
has been reinforced. This not only by the accession of 



250 



THE WORD MADE FLESH. [Third Quarter. 



Jesus himself, but by the wide dissemination of his type of 
mankind. Lifted up, Christ will draw all men his way. I 
smile when, at missionary gatherings, zealous brethren speak 
as if expecting the world's conversion to be finished in five, 
ten or fifteen years. If it is done in as many centuries I shall 
wear out my psaltery and harp in praise. But there is a 
pessimism which is quite as senseless as that over-sanguine 
faith. The bed-rock forces of our universe make for right- 
eousness. In undertaking the conquest of earth, Messiah 
knew what he could depend on. Central fact in history, 
decisive of man's salvation, - he came How the tide of war 
changed at Winchester when soldier said to soldier, " Sheridan 

is here ! " 

At the battle of Sadowa, July 3, 1866, when the pickets 
closed in the morning, Von Moltke sainted King William 
and said, " To-day your Majesty will win not only the battle, 
but the campaign." At noon it did not seem so. Prince 
Frederick Charles's corps were withering under the hottest 
artillery fire of this century save that at Gettysburg, just 
three years earlier to the hour. In a few minutes they must 
aive way. Hark! what means this cheering on the left? 
New cannons boom, and the Austrian fire slackens. Ah ! Von 
Moltke knows. The Crown Prince has arrived with his fresh 
corps. He has stormed the heights of Chlum; he enfilades 
the whole Austrian line ; Benedek is beaten ; on, on to Vienna ; 
the war is ended ! 

Brothers, let us away bravely, each to his place in Jehovah s 
hosts! Our Crown Prince, with fresh forces right from 
heaven, has reached the field. 



iLestfon II. 31uls 12. 



CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. 

John i: 29-1,2. 
By Rev. Professor BUN TAN SPENCER, Oakland, Cal. 

THE lowly Nazarene is about to begin in a public manner 
the work of the world's redemption. The Son of 
God has become a brother to the sons of men: Deity is 
veiled in humanity. The people are waiting for a deliv- 
erer, and have waited long; but so humble is his arrival 
that his person and his presence are unknown. Some one 
is needed to introduce him. This master of ceremonies 
is not to be self-appointed or a creature of circumstances. 
God has chosen and sent him. Through Malachi Jeho- 
vah has declared, " Behold, I will send my messenger, 
and he shall prepare the way before me ; and the Lord, 
whom ye seek, shall suddenly come." The wisdom and 
forethought of God in guiding this world's affairs can 
easily be discovered in many things ; but nowhere are they 
clearer than in his preparation for the salvation of men from 
sin. There is no emergency for which God is not prepared. 
Never has he to resort to any hasty adjustment to meet un- 
foreseen circumstances. His work for ages had been to make 
ready and to foretell. Hundreds of years before had it been 
said that one should introduce the coming deliverer. The 
hour has now arrived, and both Messiah and his messenger 
are ready. 



252 CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. [Third Quarter. 

Under what title shall the visitor from Heaven be an- 
nounced ? Much thought and skill have often been em- 
ployed in introducing great personages to strangers. To 
what artifice of speech shall this herald betake himself, that 
he may duly reveal the character of him whom he presents ? 
Ah, how simple, yet how full of meaning ! " Behold the Lamb 
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Doubt- 
less no time was spent in selecting this expression, yet 
the thought was not a mere intellectual flash. Even the 
figure of speech was inspired of God. Should any one deem 
it natural for a Levite to speak thus, the reply is that 
God had chosen a Levite to be the speaker. Whether 
John saw in Christ the antitype of the passover lamb, of 
the daily sacrifice, or of the sacrifices in general, or simply 
" the lamb led to the slaughter," as described by Isaiah, the 
idea was from on high. John was of course familiar with 
the prophecy of Isaiah ; but that the form of the announce- 
ment was dependent on that prophet's words is by no means 
evident. John might have spoken as he did had he never 
heard Isaiah's language, for he himself was a prophet not a 
whit inferior to any that had preceded him. So clear is 
Isaiah's portrayal of Jehovah's Servant, some have supposed 
that his prophecy must have been written after Christ's ap- 
pearance on earth ; but there is abundant ground for think- 
ing John's prevision more vivid even than Isaiah's. Is it not 
rational to believe that Isaiah and John used the same figure 
for the same reason ? Why should we undertake to distin- 
guish between the lamb spoken of by Isaiah and the antitype 
of the sacrifices ? The typical significance of the sacrifices in 
Isaiah, and the announcement of John, embody the same idea, 
that of Christ as the Sin-Bearer for all men. Every one of 
the divinely appointed sacrifices was in some way prophetic 
of Christ. These oblations which the priests ofttimes of- 
fered could never take away sins. Christ gave himself as 



Lesson II.] CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. 253 

the one sacrifice that should be effective forever. Our minds 
turn naturally from John Baptist's words to the question of 
Isaac, " Where is the lamb for a burnt offering ? " and to the 
reply of Abraham, " God will provide himself a lamb for a 
burnt offering." 

The Baptist's message adds the purpose of the great arri- 
val. The Eedeemer, the Lamb of God, comes to earth to 
"take," to "take up," to "take away," to "conquer" the 
world's sin, — by all these phrases is the word at times ren- 
dered in Scripture. Jesus Christ will expiate human sin ; 
but he will do more, he will remove it, rid us of it, make 
men holy, perfect, fit for heaven. Not only the word, but 
the form in which it stands, is significant : it means that the 
Lamb offers himself voluntarily for this service to humanity. 
It is not forced upon him. He loves his own who are in 
the world, infected by its evil, and graciously stoops to com- 
pass their deliverance. 

What is " the sin of the world " ? It includes the taint 
which we derive from our original ancestor. " As in Adam 
all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." But it involves 
much more than this. All the actual sin, guilt, and de- 
pravity of our nature is to be completely vanquished through 
this infinite sacrifice, so that the lost world shall need no 
other. The Christ alone makes an all-sufficient atonement. 
He does not come to purge us of particular sins or guilt, but 
to purify our nature utterly, to " take away " its evil, to 
exalt to his throne all who will believe on his name. 

" Not all the blood of beasts 
On Jewish altars slain 
Could give the guilty conscience peace, 
Or wash away the stain. 

" But Christ the heavenly Lamb 
Takes all our sins away : 
A sacrifice of nobler name 
And richer blood than they." 



254 CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES, [Third Quarter. 

Let us turn for a moment to consider the witness who 
makes this surprising announcement. Prophet after prophet 
had spoken, declaring that some time in the distant future 
the Messiah would come. Every sacrifice in the Mosaic 
ritual foretold the offering that was to be. The many ele- 
ments in Messiah's character had been set forth in various 
ways, the prophets adding each his item or trait to fill out 
the sublime description. But no one had before seen him 
ready to enter upon his mission. To no one hitherto had 
the right been given to say, This is he. Whence such a 
power in mortal man to recognize the Saviour of the world, 
to look through the veil which darkens the vision of hu- 
manity and understand the plan of God, seeing and de- 
claring, Behold, all things are ready? Remember, those 
matchless discourses of Christ had not yet been spoken ; his 
mighty works remained unwrought. The demons had not 
gone forth ; the blind eyes, the deaf ears, were still closed ; 
the waves of Tiberias had not yet heard the " Peace, be still ! " 
nor had Lazarus come forth from the grave. The sun had not 
hidden in darkness at our Lord's suffering, nor had he as yet 
led death in triumph at his chariot-wheel. To the eyes of 
the world he is not the Son of God, nor even a prophet, he 
is simply a young carpenter from Nazareth. 

But the courage to proclaim Messiah was, if possible, more 
wonderful than the vision to recognize him. Who shall 
stand forth, and singling out with the index finger this as 
yet unknown Coming One, bid the unbelieving world " Be- 
hold the Lamb of God " ? Go ask that doubting Christian, 
afraid to testify for Christ even amidst his followers, at this 
late day in the world's history, familiar with those words 
which mere man never spake, and with the old, old story 
of those deeds which mere man never wrought, still hesitat- 
ing though each succeeding generation has been heaping 
testimony upon testimony for the truth of Christ's claims, — 



Lesson II.] CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. 255 

after sceptics have been convinced, after martyrs by thou- 
sands have shed their blood for the truth, after the Nazarene 
has been in so many ways crowned " King of kings and Lord 
of lords," when nearly the whole world has come to regard 
the once-despised cross as a badge of honor, — go ask such 
a Christian, who can scarcely tear himself from his seat to 
rise and mumble something about " taking up his cross," 
whether he was not a hero who led the van, and without 
waiting for the pledge of one supporter, gave forth the 
lonely but telling testimony that still rings down the ages, 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world." Like a mountain overtopping molehills is the char- 
acter of John as a witness in comparison with that of many 
professing witnesses for Christ in our day. 

What was the basis upon which the faith of the Baptist 
rested as he sounded out the announcement that the Saviour 
of the world was at hand ? Did he merely have confidence 
in the correctness of his own calculations touching the times 
and seasons spoken of by the prophets ? Did he put to- 
gether the harmonious declarations of the seers and his 
own personal knowledge of Jesus, and conclude, This is he ? 
Did he from the summit of human intelligence scan, like a 
lone astronomer, the horizon, and discover the first glint- 
ing of the rays of the Morning Star? Nay, not by human 
knowledge, but by the eye of God-given faith did John see 
Jesus as Him who should come. Hear his own declaration, 
uttered and reiterated, " I knew him not." Some have sup- 
posed from this that John had no acquaintance with Christ, 
though living near him and according to the flesh personally 
related to him. The truth seems rather to have been this : 
John studied and believed the prophets. He himself had 
already preached that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. 
He was in all probability acquainted with Jesus, and im- 
pressed with his marvellous piety and gifts. But to his all- 



256 CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. [Third Quarter. 

absorbing inquiry, Is this, after all, the one " of whom Moses 
in the law and the prophets did write " ? human wisdom 
gave him no answer. God furnished the reply by a direct 
revelation. John had been instructed to wait for a sign, — 
the dove, visible symbol of the Holy Spirit, descending and 
alighting on Christ's person. He saw, believed, and made 
proclamation accordingly. 

The results of this were both general and specific, both 
mediate and immediate. Andrew and another of John's 
disciples followed Jesus at once. Both became chosen apos- 
tles. Andrew presently brought to Christ his own brother, 
Simon Peter, who became the leader among the disciples 
both before and after the resurrection. The testimony given 
by John the Baptist would have been a work " on ages 
telling," even if it had effected nought else than to bring 
Andrew, his fellow-disciple, and Peter to believe on the Lord 
Jesus. Not to the preaching of angels, but to the testimony 
of men, has God committed the winning of this world to 
Christ. Some one has said that the greatest work Andrew 
ever did was to bring his brother Peter to the Lord. This 
action and its effect were dependent on the witness of John. 
Who knows, my brother, what mighty servant of God may 
be called into the Lord's work by your testimony ? Let us 
speak out with ringing words, and tell the story of the 
Christ and his love while we may. " They overcame by 
the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony." 

Jesus was to baptize with the Holy Spirit, — the chief 
characteristic of his ministry. This truth of our lesson 
sweeps our thought onward past the cross, past the resur- 
rection, to Pentecost. The purpose of John's baptism in 
water was that Christ might be made manifest unto Israel ; 
but Christ himself was to baptize in the Holy Spirit, and 
by this he was to establish beyond any reasonable doubt 
his claim to be the Son of God. The evidence of his divine 



Lesson II.] CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. 257 

sonship was cumulative. His teaching and his works of 
power one after another added weight to the testimony 
already given. Many consider Christ's resurrection the last, 
greatest, most triumphant argument for his divinity. Nay, 
the resurrection was indeed an overwhelming argument, 
sufficient of itself to prove Christ to be very God. But it 
was not the final proof of this. The final proof lay in 
Christ's full possession of the Holy Spirit, as intimated by 
the dove-symbol, — the decisive criterion whereby John had 
first recognized the Messianic character. In Jesus as the 
dispenser of the Holy Spirit, both he and the other early 
disciples believed. So long as the Master remained on earth, 
his works and words attested his divinity and assured the 
faith of all his disciples. 

But how was their confidence to be maintained when 
Christ should have withdrawn ? How could faith be awak- 
ened in others ? Even that heroic believer and man of God, 
John the Baptist himself, — who had testified to Christ so- 
bravely and clearly, as we have seen, — when lodged within 
prison walls sent in discouragement to inquire whether Jesus 
was indeed the one that should come, or whether they must 
look for another. He did not ask in vain. God sees to it 
that men shall always have a sufficient warrant for their 
faith. The capstone proof that Jesus of Nazareth was in 
truth what he claimed to be, was the baptism of the dis- 
ciples with the Holy Spirit. Previous to the utterance 
contained in our text, it had been made known to John that 
the Son of God would baptize in the Holy Spirit. John 
had publicly declared this. Again just before his ascension 
our Lord said to his disciples, " Ye shall be baptized with 
the Holy Ghost not many days hence." For this endow- 
ment of power they were to tarry in Jerusalem. When 
Christ had ascended, when the day of Pentecost was fully 
come, all things were at last ready for this climacteric evi- 

17 



958 CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. [Third Quarter. 

dence that Jesus was God's Son. " Suddenly there came a 
sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it 
tilled all the house where they were sitting." " Cloven 
tongues, like as of fire, sat upon each of them." They were 
surrounded, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. The 
sound from heaven their ears heard, the tongues of fire 
their eyes saw. and the astonished multitude listened to 
languages which the speakers had never learned. A prophet 
could baptize in water, but who save the Son of God could 
thus bring heaven to his service ? 

How great is the error of supposing the first disciples to 
have been credulous, following Christ without basing their 
faith upon a rock foundation ! To think so is to forget that 
those men were " slow of heart to believe." There was among 
them a doubting Thomas, who said, " Except I shall see in 
his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger in the 
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will 
.not believe" Yet this very doubter was at length so fully 
convinced that he exclaimed, " My Lord and my God ! " The 
evangelist John, probably one of the first two disciples who 
followed Christ, well understood the need of incontrovertible 
evidence to establish the gospel story. In the introduction to 
his first epistle he refers to Christ as " that which was from 
the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with 
our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have 
handled." Even after Mary had seen the Lord, the disciples 
were unwilling to believe her statement that he was risen. 
The disciples were incredulous rather than credulous ; they 
were careful and cautious men. They left all and followed 
Jesus because " they were sure that he was that Christ, the 
Son of the living God." To John the Baptist God had given 
such a definite sign whereby to ascertain the Messiah that 
there was no room for mistake. To the apostles another 
sign was given, a proof still more positive, — the visible. 



Lesson II.] CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES. 259 

audible, awe-inspiring, gracious presence of God's Spirit, as 
foretold by prophets, as heralded by the forerunner, and 
as just reiterated by the Lord himself. It was not merely 
good evidence, it was demonstration, solid and abiding as 
the rock of Gibraltar. 

The testimony of John the Baptist is preserved, the evi- 
dence of the first disciples is at hand ; and from that day till 
now every age has added to the multitude of Christ's wit- 
nesses. We may not hear the rushing sound, or see the 
cloven tongues as of fire^ but millions of men to-day have 
the same Spirit calming their fears, inspiring their faith, 
bracing them for all manner of heroic deeds, and bearing 
witness with their spirits that they are the children of God. 
Whether this world will ever again witness a veritable 
pentecostal baptism of the Holy Ghost, we cannot tell and 
need not care ; but we know that often in revivals of religion 
the Holy Spirit still visits God's people with mighty power. 
Not a few of us have witnessed scenes like that which oc- 
curred during William Burns's preaching at Kilsyth, when 
as that godly man prayed in agony for the descent of the 
Holy Spirit upon the people, a sudden cry of " Hallelujah ! 
he is come," arose, formalists shook with dread, and sinners 
cried, " Christ, have mercy upon our souls ! " God grant 
that such prayer for the Spirit and such answer may be 
witnessed in all the churches of our land, and the same 
glad cry rise from every congregation, " Hallelujah ! he is 
come." 



Wesson ni. 31ul£ 19. 



H 



CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. 

John i: W-1&. 
By Rev. W. R. L. SMITH,.Nashville, Tens. 

IS baptism and the temptation passed, Jesus with five 
disciples returns to Galilee. Bidden with them to a 
marriage at Cana, he makes it the occasion of the first public 
appearance of his ministry. This he signalized by a marvel- 
lous work : at his word water was turned into wine. 

The fiercest battle of modern theology rages round the 
question of miracles. Opposers call miracles the chief of- 
fence of the Christian faith against the spirit of the age. 
Some have sought to remove the obstacle, out of very inter- 
est in the advance of Christian truth. It is not fair to 
denounce every denier of miracles as hostile to religion 
and an enemy of God, but it is true that the mistaken 
kindness of a friend may do as serious harm as the cruel 
assault of a foe. 

"What is a miracle ? No simpler, clearer, truer definition 
exists than this : " A miracle is an external event brought 
about by the immediate agency of God." It involves, not 
a suspension of natural law, but an exertion of supernatural 
power. 

In the effort to remove this offence from theology, two 
very powerful objections have been urged. 

It has been affirmed that a miracle is impossible. Water 
could not be turned into wine, because that would be con- 



Lesson III.] CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. 261 

trary to nature's law. The operation of natural law is 
uniform and unchangeable, and this fact excludes the possi- 
bility of a miracle. This is plausible, and has satisfied many 
that the account of the apostle is false. 

To this objection the believer is accustomed to reply as 
follows : Admit a freely acting, personal God, and a miracle 
becomes possible. Such a Being cannot be the slave of 
nature's laws. Again, admit a God of love, who pities his 
children in their need, and a miracle becomes exceedingly 
probable. In the third place, the assumption of the uni- 
formity of natural law in the sense named is groundless. 
Once nature was darkness. God broke this order when he 
said, " Let there be light." Nature was once chaos, and 
at his word the worlds received their frame. Uniformity 
was violated when God said, " Let us make man in our 
image." These facts, brought about by the immediate agency 
of God, utterly contradict the statement that a miracle is 
impossible. 

It is also affirmed that a miracle is incredible. This is 
not a denial, but a doubt. Even granting that a miracle 
has been wrought, it would be impossible to believe it, says 
the opposer, for the reason that we see the uniformity of 
nature on the one hand, and know the fallibility of human 
testimony on the other. Hence it is easier to believe that 
twelve men were mistaken or reported falsely concerning 
the raising of the dead, the stilling of the storm, and the 
conversion of water into wine, than that the order of nature 
was broken. 

Serious as this objection may at first appear, it also has 
been satisfactorily met by maintaining, first, that a personal 
God has wrought events which were impossible to merely 
natural forces ; and by insisting, secondly, on a law of 
intellect which demands belief for a statement made by 
unimpeachable witnesses. Honest, cautious, intelligent men 



262 CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. [Third Quarter. 

declare tbat they beheld the raising of Lazarus, the stilling 
of the sea, and the water turned to wine. More than this, 
they stake their all on the truth of these facts. They en- 
dure hardness, sufferings, and death on the strength of their 
faith in them. Our minds are compelled to accept such 
testimony. It is easier to believe that the dead rose, that 
the storm was hushed, and that the water was changed, 
than to admit that James, Matthew, Peter, and John 
were dishonest or deluded. 

The charge of the incredibility of miracles has been dis- 
proved by the fact that they are credited, and that not only 
by the ignorant and credulous, but by as sane and acute 
minds as the world has ever seen. The most logical, philo- 
sophical, and profound of men have steadfastly believed in 
Jesus as the Son of God, proved such by the wonders, signs, 
and mighty works which God wrought through him. The 
truth is that miracles are dubitable and credible alike. A 
man can doubt if he will. 

The proof of miracles is abundant. Even the enemies of 
Christ confessed his mighty works. The doctrines of Jesus 
and his marvellous deeds were the two striking elements of 
his ministry. His enemies beheld, and were impressed with 
what they were best fitted to receive. The works appealed 
to sight, the teaching to reflection. The adversaries were 
better prepared to see than to reason ; hence while they re- 
ject or scorn his doctrine, they with one consent admit his 
miracles. Had they denied them, it would have been a 
serious obstacle to faith. They recognized his wonders and 
signs, but sought to neutralize their influence by ascribing 
them to infernal agency. "By Beelzebub doth he cast out 
the unclean spirits." On the resurrection of Lazarus the 
chief priests and the elders called a council, saying, " What 
do we, seeing this man doeth many signs, and all the people 
will believe on him ? " 



IiESBON III.] CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. 263 

But Jesus himself is our best witness. He said, " The 
works which my Father gave me to accomplish, the very 
works that I do, they bear witness that the Father hath 
sent me." He adds that he wrought them, not through 
Beelzebub, but by the finger of God. Lord, we believe. 
Here we rest our faith, in Jesus's consciousness of the power 
that wrought in himself. It is ten thousand times easier to 
believe that God wrought mighty wonders through him, 
than that he was deluded or false. 

In working the miracle Jesus was careful to guard the 
sanctity of his power. No human being might make sug- 
gestions as to its use. This is the meaning of those strange 
words addressed to his mother when she announced to him 
the failure of the wine : " Woman, what have I to do with 
thee ? mine hour is not yet come." This is not the language 
of severity or rebuke. Never was there another 'man so 
incapable as Jesus of disrespect to a mother. As he hung 
on the cross it w T as with this same word, " woman," that he 
addressed his mother, in committing her to the care of his 
beloved disciple. " What have I to do with thee ? " From 
this time on she must know that he is not Jesus the son 
of Mary, but Christ the Son of God ; that the time and 
manner of his self-revelation are not to be hastened 
by the longings of natural love. As regards his great 
work and mission, the beautiful earthly relationship has 
closed. In the kingdom of God, earthly relations must 
give place to heavenly. In the career he has just en- 
tered upon as the servant of God, her authority must not 
intrude. I must be about my Father's business, and in 
that business I have to do with him alone. So it ever is. 
God claims the absolute submission of our children to him- 
self, and in this holy place he forbids the intrusion of all 
parental authority. Mary felt no rebuff. On the contrary, 
she evidently found hope in his words, for she immediately 



264 CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. [Third Qcarter. 

commanded the servants, " Whatsoever he saith unto you, 
do it." 

It passes comprehension how in the face of such scripture 
this precious mother could have come to he exalted to higher 
divine honors than her immaculate Son. To her Jesus said, 
while standing on the threshold of his redeeming work, Here 
our holy earthly relation virtually passes away. Henceforth 
you are to me only as other women. To-day the Eomanist 
views her as more exalted in heaven than her adorable Son, 
and supplicates her to influence the use of his power in men's 
behalf. 

" The works of early Christian art," says Robertson, " curi- 
ously exhibit the progress of this perversion. They show 
how mariolatry grew up. The first pictures of the early 
Christian ages simply represent the woman. By and by we 
find outlines of the mother and the child. In an after age 
the son is seen sitting on a throne with the mother crowned, 
but sitting as yet below him. In an age still later, the 
crowned mother on a level with the son. Later still, the 
mother on a throne above the son. And lastly, a Romish 
picture represents the eternal son in wrath about to destroy 
the earth, and the Virgin Intercessor interposing, pleading 
by significant attitude her maternal rights, and redeeming 
the world from his vengeance. Such was, in fact, the 
progress of virgin worship." 

To the Ephesians Paul affirms that God made Christ " sit 
at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, 
and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name 
that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which 
is to come." This would almost seem to have been written 
expressly to guard against all possibility of such mariolatry 
as modern ages have witnessed ; but in vain. 

What was the aim of the miracle before us ? " This be- 
ginning of miracles did Jesus, and manifested his glory." 



Lesson III.] CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. 2G5 

As in a sudden flash of light, his nature, dignity, and mission 
stood disclosed. It was part of his glory that he was the Son 
of God. It was another part of it that he was the beloved 
of the Father. It was his chief glory that he came to min- 
ister to men. The honor of his sonship is thus far concealed 
from men. So likewise the crown of the Father's love and 
the amazing grace of salvation to men in and through him. 
The water turns to wine, and there is a brilliant attestation 
of his honor, a most clear manifestation of his glory. 

There can be no mistake in declaring his ministry to men 
the very climax and crown of his glory. Laying aside his 
dignity, equalling that of the Father, and resigning the hap- 
piness of the heavenly places, he took on him the form of a 
servant and became obedient unto death. He came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister. Through service and 
sacrifice he attained unto a glory before unknown. The true 
splendor of our Lord is too often misunderstood. Visions of 
gorgeous palaces and the pomp of regal wealth and power 
frequently deform our conceptions of his glory. It is not 
physical, but moral and spiritual ; and in ministration to the 
humble wants of the lowly it found its noblest expression. 
It is the blessed Master's will that we should share in his 
glory. " If any man will be great among you, let him be the 
servant of all." 

Jesus manifested his glory by his sympathy with the com- 
mon joys of life. He went to the house of feasting, and 
mingled freely in the festivities of a marriage. On that day 
he sanctified forever the holy institution of marriage and the 
simple pleasures and joys of the people. In this he stands 
in striking contrast with his forerunner. John was severe 
in his tastes, ascetic in his habits, and kept aloof from the 
haunts of men. In Christ there was more tender interest 
in things human, and this partly explains why his ministry 
so soon overshadowed that of the Baptist. 



2(36 CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. [Third Quarter. 

Again, his glory was manifested in an act of timely helpful- 
ness. The wine was failing, and mortification, keen and deep, 
threatened the family. When it failed, his hour had come, 
and the best wine of the feast was supplied. We are not 
concerned now with the use made of the fact by the friends 
and opposers of temperance reform. If some allege that it 
was not intoxicating, while others find in it a warrant for 
the whiskey traffic, the mistake of the first seems only 
paralleled by the blasphemy of the latter. Our Lord's help- 
fulness in a case of ordinary human need is the impressive 
fact. This glory he manifested when he turned the water 
into wine. It is a comfort to know that our common daily 
wants are sacred to him, and that he stands ready to deliver 
us from perplexity and confusion. When Jehovah came into 
the camp of the hungry Israelites and announced the manna, 
it was told them, " in the morning ye shall see the glory of 
God." God's helpfulness to the poor and needy is his pre- 
eminent glory. 

What was the result of the miracle? It became the 
confirmation of his disciples' faith. " And his disciples be- 
lieved on him." The miracle had its domestic value as a 
most timely relief, but its chief value lies in its weight of 
testimony. 

There have been three epochs of miracles in the kingdom 
,,f God. The first was in the days of Moses, and it issued 
in the formation of the Hebrew commonwealth. The second 
was in the days of Elijah, resulting in the preservation of 
the institutions of Moses against the aggressions of heathen- 
ism. The third occurred in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, 
culminating in the foundation of Christianity. In these 
three crises it pleased God to add the indorsement of mira- 
cles to the work of his servants. He knows that faith 
needs to be made reasonable by having a proper basis. 
Hence he accredited his messengers by enduing them 



Lesson III] CHRIST'S FIRST MIRACLE. 267 

with miraculous powers. Moses goes before Pharaoh with 
this astounding credential, — a rod which thrown down be- 
comes a serpent, and which taken up becomes a staff again. 

Jesus comes into the world displaying a multitude of 
signs and wonders. First in the catalogue is the miracle 
at Cana. Its purpose is not to prove the truth of his teach- 
ing, but to convince men that he is the sent of the Father. 
Nicodemus catches the idea, as his speech plainly discloses, 
— " we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for 
no man can do these signs that thou doest, except God be 
with him." It is not the office of the miracle, then, to estab- 
lish doctrine, but to confirm faith in the Divine Messenger. 
Hence it is said that, seeing this miracle, his disciples be- 
lieved on him. 

No man is asked to accept divine truth on the ground of 
miracle. That stands on its own merits, and proves itself 
by its adaptations to life and its needs^ " Certainly," says 
the objecting friend, "take the doctrine of Christ on its 
merits, and cast away the stumbling-blocks." Here is a 
curious contrast. The ancient enemy of the Gospel admit- 
ted the fact of miracles, but rejected the teaching of Christ. 
Our modern friend of the Gospel believes the doctrine, but 
utterly revolts at the miraculous element. This honor of 
doctrine at the expense of miracle is absurd. If the teach- 
ing of Jesus is believed, it must be on the ground that he 
speaks the truth. Then the miracle must be a fact, for him- 
self said, " I cast out demons by the finger of God." 

God has joined miracles and doctrine in the person of 
Jesus Christ, and no man shall ever be able to put them 
asunder. Lord Jesus, thou art approved to our souls by 
thy mighty works, thy sovereign grace, and thy suffering 
love ! We believe that thou earnest forth from God, and that 
believing on thee, we have forgiveness of sins and the gift 
of everlasting life. 



ilcsson IV. 3]ulp 20 



CHRIST AND MCODEMUS. 

John id: 1-17. 
Bv Rev. E. C. DARGAN, D.D., Charleston, S. C. 

IS God real and approachable ? Is there a better existence 
beyond death, and is it attainable ? Is there a purer life 
for man here, and can help be had in reaching it ? In this 
interview between Jesus and Nicodemus these great questions 
are presented and discussed in a manner that must always be 
of fresh interest, because there are still such inquirers, and 
because the answers are valid eternally. Some persons, for 
one reason or another, ignore these deep questions. Others 
naively judge them incapable of answer, accounting it idle 
to spend time on them. Others approach them with keen 
curiosity and real personal interest, their minds, however, 
clouded by wrong prepossessions and timid through doubt. 
The last have a spokesman in Nicodemus ; they receive em- 
phatic and final answer in Christ's replies and instructions to 
him. In this interview, then, is set before us 

THE HUMAN INQUIRY. 

Nicodemus's very approach challenges notice. He comes 
by night, — probably because he preferred that the inter- 
view should be private. He seems to have some fear lest 
he compromise himself in the eyes of his associates by 
seeking light on religious questions from such a source as 
Jesus. Yet he comes. He brings, too, a certain amount of 



Lesson IV.J CHRIST AND NICODEMUS. 269 

conviction. " Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher from 
God." Here is respect for the person of Jesus, and a 
certain belief in the divine origin and character of his 
work. 

There are inquirers of just this sort among us to-day, — 
men attracted by the profound problems concerning God, the 
soul, and the future life. They neither dismiss them with 
the frivolous, nor ignore them with those who are absorbed 
in worldly pursuits, neither minimize their importance like 
the materialist, nor cynically deny the possibility of knowl- 
edge concerning them, like the agnostic. On the contrary, 
they feel a strong desire to know what may be known about 
them. They even go so far as to look to Jesus Christ, with 
some degree of conviction, as the best if not the only source 
of light on these momentous themes. They may be ashamed 
of it, voicing their faint faith all stealthily, by night, as it 
were. Still they admit, " Christ and Christianity propound 
concerning these subjects the best wisdom as yet uttered in 
this world." Their timidity and prejudice are accompanied 
by earnestness and candor. 

Our Lord declares, as preliminary to any true possession or 
even conception of heavenly things, the absolute necessity of 
a new birth. The Pharisee cannot endure that doctrine. Is 
he not a Jew, a ruler among the Jews, a scrupulous Pharisee, 
and himself a teacher of spiritual things ? Must such as he 
receive new birth " from above " before they can even " see 
the kingdom of God " ? Preposterous. Piqued, he purposely 
states the difficulty in such a way as to make it seem absurd. 
" Can a man enter the second time into his mother's womb 
and be born ? " Nicodemus cannot have meant to take our 
Lord's language as referring to a new physical birth. His 
answer was intended to express his emphatic dissent from 
the principle involved, so far as he understood it. " As a new 
birth is impossible to a grown man, and an absurdity in 



270 CHRIST AND NICODEMUS. [Third Quarter. 

nature, so is this new moral and spiritual birth you speak of 
impossible to a man of settled character and convictions. 
The requirement of it as a condition of spiritual life is 
absurd." Something like this must Nicodemus have meant, 
for he was not a fool, and he was a Pharisee. 

The doctrine of the new birth remains still an offence in 
Pharisaic eyes. It assumes that human nature is so radically 
evil that spiritual life can begin only with a new creation. 
The vital force necessary for this new start must come 
" from above," from a source superior to the soul. But the 
Pharisee finds in himself the spring and motive of spiritual 
life. To acquire correct character is his own high preroga- 
tive. Patronizingly he thanks God that he is not like 
other men. He believes himself to be spiritual by nature. 
What he needs, if he needs anything, is only light and 
development. 

So speak the Nicodemuses of to-day. The pipe has indeed 
become an organ, and the " variations " multitudinously in- 
tricate ; but the " air " is still the same. The prime thing 
in religion is to such people its prime difficulty. To insist 
on a radical change of heart by the Holy Spirit as the 
initial step in the true religious life abides a stumbling-block 
to not a few. 

Nicodemus finds another difficulty in the inscrutable na- 
ture of the subject. " How can these things be ? " he asks. 
After such clear and positive reiteration of the truth, he can- 
not in courtesy deny or ridicule it again ; but he can veil 
his inward denial under a request for explanation. What 
and who is the Spirit, and how can he influence the heart 
and mind of man ? I see in others and feel in myself only 
the impulses, desires, and aspirations which belong to human 
beings. What are the criteria of the Spirit's work ? Sup- 
pose he does effect this change which you pronounce so neces- 
sary, what is man's responsibility in regard to it ? How is 



Lessojj IV.] CHRIST AND NICODEMUS. 271 

a person to continue himself, if the new Self comes "from 
above " ? These voices, too, still echo about us from that 
historic colloquy by night. Still we hear the doubter's pet 
word, " how/' "how," always "how"! And many souls — 
aye, earnest ones too, the more 's the pity — stand persist- 
ently out in the dark with "how" in their mouths, "how" 
in their hearts, and " how " forever in their way to glory. 
" Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge 
of the truth," they timidly wait on the threshold of the 
Palace Beautiful, repeating over and over their sad refrain, 
" How can these things be ? " What are we to do with 
such? Shall we impatiently repel them? Shall we make 
them improper concessions because of their character and 
standing ? Neither. The Great Teacher shall show us what 
to do. Let us turn to — 

THE DIVINE ANSWER. 

In his attitude to Nicodemus our blessed Lord is kind, 
but he does not compromise in the slightest degree. This 
prominent and estimable man, most desirable as a convert, 
is neither wheedled nor flattered. Divine truth makes no 
bargain with human respectability, however eminent. Christ 
clearly assumes authority to speak the decisive word on 
these high themes. The statement that "he taught as one 
having authority " is here abundantly confirmed. Nico- 
demus politely concedes him some authority, but Jesus 
tacitly assumed far more, distinctly asserting absolute and 
final knowledge. It is important to recognize this assump- 
tion of authority on the part of Christ, in order the better 
to comprehend what he says. 

Observe with what emphasis, what abrupt and almost 
startling promptness, actually approaching rudeness, Jesus 
asserts his sovereign teachership. " You have come to ask 
me about religious truth, and I unhesitatingly tell you." 



272 . CHRIST AND NICODEMUS. [Third Quarter. 

He does not wait, reflect, or qualify. He appeals to no 
philosopher, quotes no rabbi. He has not concluded by 
ratiocination that a man must be " born again," or " born 
from above." We may read the phrase either way, as the 
two meanings are but a shade apart. He speaks ex ca- 
thedra : " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be 
born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God." There is here no reference — or only the 
remotest — to any ritual observance, but there is Christ's 
most authoritative affirmation that men need a new spiritual 
birth. Our Lord commits himself to this proposition be- 
yond a doubt. Whoever denies it, whoever complains that 
he cannot understand it, Jesus certainly declares a spiritual 
new birth necessary to a real religious life. We can stand 
on his authority. 

Xicodemus was a " teacher of Israel." The Lord's doc- 
trine should not have seemed so monstrous in his eyes. 
Ought he not to have recognized its accord with man's 
state of sin and helplessness ? Little could the Jewish 
ruler have reflected upon human sin and weakness, feebly 
must he have conceived God's exacting holiness, to deem 
Christ's assertion strange. Reason and experience alike 
teach that a second birth is as far beyond man's unaided 
power as the first. The law of Moses agreed with this. 
Had Nicodemus never studied out the meaning of atoning 
sacrifice ? Had he not read in the psalm that prayer, " O 
God, create within me a clean heart " ? Had he deemed 
idle that promise of prophecy that one day the Almighty 
would himself stamp the divine law on men's hearts ? 

People of to-day are still less justified than was Nicodemus 
in cavilling at this truth. With double reason may our Mas- 
ter now urge, " Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be 
born again." It is among the clearest teachings of modern 
science that like produces like, that kind begets kind. Sow 



Lesson IV.] CHRIST AND NICODEML'S. 273 

wheat, and wheat will spring. By no incantation, manipu- 
lation, artifice, or patience can man get life from matter 
which does not already contain it. Life from life — only 
from life ; that is the law of the material world, at any rate. 
It should incline us to believe the same touching the spir- 
itual ; for God created and rules both realms alike. 

The Lord, however, does not deny that difficulties naturally 
connect themselves with the doctrine of regeneration. The 
source of them lies in our two natures, flesh and spirit, 
so immeasurably diverse, while so intimately locked together. 
Our present life is at best carnal. " That which is born of 
the flesh is flesh." " This I say, brethren, that flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Now " the natural man 
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are 
foolishness unto him." We must have spiritual enlighten- 
ment. To be sure, " that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit," and with spiritual birth comes a measure of spiritual 
comprehension ; but even this is not complete as yet, for 
" ourselves also which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even 
we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, 
to wit, the redemption of our body." 

.But our failure to comprehend the facts does not alter 
them, while ordinary observation may assure us that they 
are as alleged. The wind blows. We hear it, but " we know 
neither its birthplace nor its grave." Yet it blows, and is a 
ubiquitous, indubitable fact and force, sometimes as the cy- 
clone's blast, sometimes as the gentle zephyr's breath. No 
form of force is itself visible ; each is known by its effects. 
Yet madness itself would not, viewing the flood's desolation 
at Johnstown last year, doubt the existence of gravity. 

How unreasonable, ye doubters, are your scruples after 
all ! Why decline to accept spiritual truth because myste- 
rious, when you daily assume to be true physical facts 
equally uncomprehended ? You cannot fully understand 



9 y^ CHRIST AND NICODEMUS. [Third Quarter. 

anything. Ah, your trouble is not here, it is moral ; it lies 
in your°lack of will, not in your lack of knowledge. "If I 
told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye be- 
lieve if I tell you heavenly things ? " If you will not credit 
what stands visibly before your eyes, that sinful man needs 
more than self-reformation, how can you expect to under- 
stand the philosophy of true regeneration ? If you will not 
learn the fundamental rules of arithmetic, how are you to 
master the calculus ? Your perplexities, real enough, are 
largely of your own making. You hold your hand to your 
eye and complain that it is dark ! Cease minimizing God ; 
humble yourself and your petty philosophy : you shall have 
vision, — rich and saving, as wide and as far as you 

need. 

For God's love is as great as his ways are wonderful. 
With that same authoritative tone unchanged, and even a 
higher claim asserted, with that mysterious doctrine of a new 
birth unrepealed, and presenting a simple illustration of 
man's free choice, the Heavenly Teacher comes to the grand 
culmination. He states the most glorious and important 
truth ever proposed to man's acceptance: « God so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' 
O ruler among the people, timid yet proud ; self-righteous 
Pharisee, dimly conscious of need ; teacher of others, yet 
thyself wanting light ; doubtful of divine truth, yet yearning 
to know it, -here it is, all in a sentence ! Here resolve thy 
doubts, here rest thy soul, here wait till the day dawn and 
the shadows flee. God loves thee, though sinful ; Christ 
came to seek thee, because thou wert lost. Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. 



ilesson v. august 2. 



CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. 

John to: 5-26. 
Br Rev. Professor K. S. COLWELL, Granville, Ohio. 

NOT many months after John the Baptist had startled his 
followers by his prophetic exclamation, " Behold the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," the 
multitudes began to throng about Jesus and to seek his 
baptism. Some of the Jews endeavored to make use of this 
increasing popularity of Jesus to stir the ambition and 
jealousy of the great forerunner. The attempt was a com- 
plete failure. John was content to do the great work as- 
signed to him. His lofty spirit rose above the temptation, and 
he declared that his joy was fulfilled in decreasing as Christ 
increased. But John the Evangelist tells us that when Jesus 
knew of the attitude and action of the Pharisees toward him- 
self he left Judaea for Galilee. The most direct route was 
through Samaria, and this our Saviour took. There is noth- 
ing in the record to mark for us the part of Judsea whence 
he started, nor yet the time ; for the words, !: Say not ye, 
There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest," 
furnish no definite information as to the time of year. 

But we are told that our Lord arrived one day about the 
sixth hour — that is, about noon — at Jacob's well, near 
Sychar, and sat down by the well very weary with his 
journey, while his disciples went on into the city. The well 
is easy of identification at the present time ; but as to the 



27G CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. [Third Quartek. 

site of the city, we cannot be so sure. Some have supposed 
that Sychar was identical with the ancient Shechem, nearly 
two miles away; while others think that it must have been 
a smaller city nearer to the well. But this, though possibly 
an interesting, certainly is not an important matter. Our 
interest centres about the well; for it was the scene of a 
memorable conversation, — a conversation helpful to the 
souls of men in all the ages since, and no less helpful now 

The first part of the narrative contains nothing particularly 
noteworthy. Jesus, weary from his journey, sits by the well 
V Samaritan woman approaches, and he asks her for a drink 
of water. That request is significant only because made of a 
Samaritan by a Jew. The Samaritans were hated by the Jews 
for having mingled the race with the heathen nations, for 
establishing a place of worship on Mount Gerizim, and for hos- 
tile acts said to have been done by them at various times in 
the past This hatred was so intense that contact with the 
Samaritans was supposed by a true Jew to be defiling, and 
intercourse between the peoples was reduced to a minimum. 
The woman is amazed that Jesus disregards this custom of his 
countrymen, and asks for an explanation. Jesus then seizes 
the opportunity furnished by her question to speak to her of 
the "living water" which he is able to bestow upon those 
who ask him. Evidently moved by some strange power 
though doubting and perplexed, she asks that it be bestowed 
upon her. At this point, apparently because the woman s 
mind was now prepared for it, Jesus gives the conversation 
a sudden turn, and in a few words shows her that he is 
acquainted with her past history and her present life ot 
shame. This at once convinces her that she is speaking 
with a prophet. The effect produced upon her by this 
knowledge is a most singular one. Her exclamation, - Sir, I 
perceive that thou art a prophet," testifies to the correctness 
of this knowledge, but contains no flavor of confession. Her 



Lesson V.] CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. 277 

mind seems to be completely occupied with another topic ; 
and without prelude or preparation she presents the subject 
which troubles her. " Our fathers worshipped in this moun- 
tain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men 
ought to worship." The very statement of the two posi- 
tions held is in itself a request that he decide the point at 
issue. Many have thought that the woman asked the ques- 
tion in eager haste to turn the conversation from the un- 
pleasant topic of her own personal sinfulness to a less 
embarrassing subject ; but although we may not assert that 
this cannot have been the case, there is nothing in the ac- 
count to support the view, and very much against it. Every 
expression recorded by John tends to show that she was plain 
and straightforward in her speech, even to bluntness. Her 
first question is, " How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest 
drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria ? " Again she 
says, " Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is 
deep." " Art thou greater than our father Jacob ? " " G-ive 
me this water, that I thirst not, neither come here to draw." 
" Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." In these words 
there is no trace of evasion. They are all pointed, pungent, 
keen. While it is not impossible, it certainly is improbable 
that one who used such direct speech should in the same 
breath acknowledge his prophetic power and attempt an 
evasion. The recognition of her own guilt doubtless was 
too seriously lacking in defmiteness and force, but she does 
not act like one trying to cover it up or evade it. And also 
Christ's treatment of her question is significant. Never did 
he meet evasion and subterfuge with such condescension as is 
shown in his answer to her question ; he certainly treated the 
question as if it were an earnest and honest one, although we 
need not say a pertinent one. The fact seems to be that, 
whatever may have been her position at other times, she was 
now possessed of an eager desire to know what was the right 



o; s CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. [Third Qcartkk. 

place in which to worship. It overtopped every other thought, 
and she put the question as it was in her mind, with the 
same straightforward earnestness that is shown in the others. 
But that which ought most to absorb our attention and 
thought, that which we should be most eager to know and 
understand thoroughly, is our Lord's answer to the woman's 
question. Whatever the condition of the woman's heart, 
whence it sprang, he answered the question fully, and 
gave to this unknown, sinful woman a truth but little 
known at the time of this conversation by the well, and too 
little appreciated at the present day. The woman sought 
from One whom she regarded as a prophet an authoritative 
statement concerning the right place in which to worship 
God; and as a result the Son of God gave to her the sim- 
plest and clearest as well as the most comprehensive de- 
scription the world has ever had of the worship due from the 
creature to the Creator. The only uncertainty in her mind 
was as to the place ; but he who " giveth to all abundantly," 
did not stop with settling that, he corrected as well the as- 
sumption underlying it. Her question - yes, even the contest 
itself between the Jews and the Samaritans as to Mount Ge- 
rizimand Jerusalem - reflected the imperfect and incorrect 
idea of worship which dominated all the pagan religions and 
colored even the worship of Jehovah, - the idea of locality ; 
the belief that there is some one spot or place more ac- 
ceptable to God than all others ; that acts of homage and wor- 
ship performed there are more pleasing to him than such acts 
performed in other places can be. So thought the servants 
of Ben-hadad, king of Syria, when, defeated in battle in this 
same region by the princes of Israel, they said to their master, 
"Their gods are the gods of the hills, therefore are they 
stronger than we ; but let us light them in the plain, and 
surely we shall be stronger than they." Nor can we wonder 
at this mistake. It was a natural one. It has always been 



Lesson V.] CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. 279 

the plan of the Divine Wisdom to reveal the truth gradually • 
and there was much in the method and manner of the Old 
Testament revelation which might give occasion for this 
mistake, especially when we remember that men are ever 
prone to seize upon the symbol and hold it to the neglect 
of the truth symbolized. The presence of the pillar of cloud 
at the door of the tabernacle, and the cloud filling the Holy 
Place at the dedication of the temple, made so strong an 
impression upon the true Israelite that we may not wonder 
at him, and still less may we chide him, that his vision was 
not yet strong and clear enough to penetrate what the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls " the shadow 
of good things to come," and discern the substance behind. 
If we are faithful in our search after truth, a large part of our 
progress must consist in learning, at least in thought, to 
discard the shell for the kernel, the symbol for the thing 
symbolized, the shadowy, shifting form for the substantial 
truth behind it. • 

But note the answer of our Lord, which really consists of 
three parts. " Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when 
ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, 
worship the Father." It is significant that he speaks chiefly 
of what " cometh," not of the past. The practical and im- 
portant question pertains to the present and the future. 
Whatever importance may have attached to any place in the 
past, as a centre of worship, is to give way. Even the 
temple at Jerusalem was no longer to be regarded, as it had 
been for centuries, pre-eminently the house of God. The 
reverent thoughts with which the Jews have viewed Jeru- 
salem, and the Samaritans the mountain of Samaria, will 
be entirely out of place in the time that " cometh." In these 
words, then, the woman has her answer plainly given, — 
an answer which removes the cause of this whole dissension 
between the two peoples. 



2S0 CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. [Third Qdartek. 

Observe uow the second part of Christ's answer. " Ye 
worship ye know not what ; we know what we worship, 
for salvation is of the Jews." This matter of worship even 
in the past has had more important elements in it than 
those pertaining to the locality where it should be offered. 
In these respects he states unequivocally that the Samari- 
tans have been in the wrong, and the Jews in the right. 
The Samaritans, moreover, are worshipping in ignorance. 
They do not know what, or whom, they worship. The Jews 
do know. The Samaritans believed implicitly in Jehovah, 
but they stopped with the revelation of Moses. They had 
been standing still religiously and theologically for nearly 
fifteen centuries, while Jehovah had been leading his people 
onward, training them by revelation and by providence 
to broader and truer ideas of himself and his kingdom. 
By clinging to the Pentateuch and ignoring the rest of the 
Old Testament Scriptures, they had deprived themselves of 
the elevating, spiritualizing influence of the songs and 
prophecies, the visions and aspirations, of the men whom God 
had inspired to bless his people. The result was that they 
fell so far behind the Jews in spiritual things that our 
Saviour characterized their worship as ignorant worship, in 
comparison with the more intelligent service of the Jews. 
It is worthy of notice that here Jesus distinctly classes him- 
self as a Jew, and avers that the Jews have accepted and 
adhered to the series of revelations through which God and 
his salvation had been made known. 

Then, having declared that no particular locality is here- 
after to be more acceptable than another, and that the 
Samaritans in their ignorance are worshipping an almost 
unknown god, the Lord gives utterance to a more lofty 
ideal of worship than the world had yet been prepared to 
receive. " The hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor- 
shippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth : for 



Lesson V.] CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. 281 

the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is spirit, and 
they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 
Here is the doctrine in which all the rest of the conversation 
centres, to which it all leads ; and the vital point in this state- 
ment is to be found in the words " God is spirit." This truth 
had been intimated and assumed at various times in the Old 
Testament. Solomon in his prayer at the dedication of the 
temple had said, " Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens 
cannot contain thee," and David had said, " Whither shall 
I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy pres- 
ence ? " The very prohibition of the second commandment of 
the Decalogue assumed the spirituality of God. These are 
but a few of the many places where the truth is taught. But 
these words to the Samaritan woman put this implied teach- 
ing in a more distinct and emphatic form, and in a relation 
entirely new. The truth that God is spirit is asserted and 
emphasized in order to show what kind of worship should be 
offered to him. Bight knowledge of God is essential to right 
worship of him. It is impossible that men should worship 
him acceptably without -knowing and remembering what he 
is. Inasmuch as God is spirit, " he dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands 
as though he needed anything." Out of the knowledge that 
God is spirit must come the knowledge that only spirit 
worship, spiritual worship, is acceptable to him. That is the 
great truth, the fundamental truth, the far-reaching truth, 
which the wearied Son of Man taught to this Samaritan 
woman by the well, — that the only true worship of Jehovah 
is spiritual worship, homage of the soul. 

Let us notice in regard to such worship that it does not 
depend upon* the place. The old strife about Gerizim and 
Mount Zion and all similar contests become in the light of 
Christ's words meaningless contentions. There is no holy 
city, there is no sacred temple, in which or toward which, 



282 CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. [Third Quarter. 

in particular, men ought to pray. Even the places which 
have been associated with the visible presence of the Son of 
God, and the sanctuaries where his Holy Spirit has been 
poured out upon the hearts of men contribute no essential 
element to make our worship acceptable to God. " Neither 
in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem," are words which 
put at rest forever all tpiestionings as to the special sanctity 
of any particular place of worship. 

But spiritual worship is also independent of time, as well 
as of place. Just as we are taught that there is no particular 
place where God is more pleased to receive the worship of 
his people than another, so there is no particular time when 
such worship is more acceptable. Paul wrote to the 
Colossians, " Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or in 
drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of 
the sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come ; but the 
body is of Christ." The homage of the heart is as acceptable 
on a week-day as on the Lord's day, at the time of feasting 
as at the time of fasting. 

But again, true spiritual worship is not conditioned on any 
particular form. At the time when this woman of Samaria 
sought to know from our Saviour the true place of worship, 
it would be almost impossible to think of that worship apart 
from the imposing ritual of the temple service. The priests 
and the vestments, the sacrifices and the incense, the shed 
blood and the consuming fire, would all be included. But this 
ritual, so distinctly appointed under the first covenant, was as 
distinctly abrogated under the new. It passed away as a part 
of the shadow, to be replaced by the substance in Christ ; and 
the truth shines forth clear and bright that the repentant 
petition of the humble publican, or the unuttered prayer of 
the weeping Magdalene, is as acceptable worship in the sight 
of him who seeth the heart, as the more imposing adoration 
of Solomon in the temple, or of Hezekiah on the throne. 



Lesson V.] CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL. 283 

But although these external circumstances of place and 
time and manner are in no wise essential to true worship, 
let us not fall into the mistake of inferring that therefore 
they can have no legitimate effect upon true worship. We 
are creatures of circumstances, and should not forget that 
these have great power to influence us. They can be made 
exceedingly helpful in assisting and contributing to that 
which they are utterly powerless to produce, and he who 
ignores their power is guilty of folly. Just as the ser- 
vices of the tabernacle and the temple, the holy days and 
places of assembly, were useful in turning the attention, the 
affection, the aspiration of the worshipper toward Jehovah, 
so times and places and forms may now be helpful in prepar- 
ing the soul for the worship which is beyond them. But 
none of these things are of divine appointment, and all may 
legitimately vary, according to personal preference and pecu- 
liarities. The essential, indispensable requisites of true 
worship are inward, not outward, spiritual, not material, and 
are attainable x by all. 

How far the Samaritan woman understood this great 
truth we can only conjecture. From her answer " I know 
that Messias cometh; when he is come he will tell us all 
things," we may infer that the truth was too large for her 
immediate comprehension, and that in her perplexity she 
referred to the coming Messiah" the decision of a matter far 
too large for her to grasp. And that there was nothing 
blameworthy in her spirit in regard to it is evident from the 
fact that Jesus at once declared himself to her as that Mes- 
siah more plainly than we know of his having done be- 
fore even to his own disciples. " I that speak unto thee 
am he." 

" It is strange," says Fairbairn, " that Christ should often 
speak his most remarkable words to the least remarkable 
persons. Here is a woman who for one splendid moment 



284 CHRIST AT JACOBS WELL. [Third Quarter. 

emerges from the unknown, stands as in a blaze of living 
light, and vanishes into the unknown again. But while she 
stands she is immortalized ; the moment becomes an eternal 
now, in which Christ and she face each other forever, he 
giving and she receiving truths the world can never allow to 
die. She represents heathenism, — the world waiting for 
the truth Christ was bringing. And what he gives to her 
he gives to the race; what she receives she receives for 
mankind." 



ilestfon VI. august 9. 



CHEIST'S AUTHOKITY. 

John v: 17-30. 
By Rev. JOHN HUMPSTONE, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y 

A LARGE part of the gospel of John is taken up with 
■£*- the record of our Lord's great controversy with the 
religious leaders of the Jews. The very structure of the 
gospel seems to have been determined by the outlines of this 
conflict. Four notable miracles furnished the occasions out 
of which it grew, — three of them wrought at Jerusalem, 
one in Galilee. They were the cure of the impotent man 
at the pool of Bethesda, the multiplication of the loaves, the 
bestowal of sight upon the man born blind, and the raising 
of Lazarus. It was chiefly these works of power, and Christ's 
defence of them and of himself as their Author, which deep- 
ened the perplexity of the Sanhedrim into enmity, and led 
them to procure the death of Jesus. 

We are about to consider that discourse of Jesus which 
grew out of the first of these miracles, or, more particularly, 
that part of it in which he declares the Son's equality with 
the Father and identifies himself with " the Son." Clearly 
it will help us to have started from this historical, factual 
point of view. The words we ponder are not the record of a 
course of abstract reasoning, they do not convey the specu- 
lations of a philosopher ; they are the testimony of Jesus to 
himself when his authority and his work were challenged. 
We deal with no fine-spun theorizing of a merely human 



286 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. [Third Quarter 

mind, about the Trinity. There is given to us, rather, a rev- 
elation of the consciousness of one of the " Persons " within 
the Trinity, incarnate as the Christ. Some of his words are 
undoubtedly more attractive to most of us than these words 
are ; for instance, his tender " Come unto me," his reassur- 
ing " Let not your heart be troubled," his practical " "What- 
soever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even 
so to them." But if any words of his have such value as we 
assign to them, all his words are of moment. What he has 
been pleased to say of any mystery, and especially of him- 
self, we should be glad to study. We have no right to refuse 
to skirt those shores of this unfathomable sea of the being and 
nature of God, which our Lord has denned and charted for us. 
Beware of putting out upon such a sea in any cock-boat of 
speculation steered by yourself ; but you may sail without 
danger in the ship which the Pilot commands. 

I. 

Observe, then, that our Lord asserted his equality with 
God as his Father. It was in act, indeed, that the decla- 
ration was first implied rather than made. His was no 
ostentatious proclamation of himself. Jesus made known 
his divine dignity in the exercise of compassion and by the 
putting forth of power. The helplessness of the man beside 
the pool stirred his pity and elicited his aid. Even when 
the assertion of his equality with his Father was made in 
words, it was still made indirectly, at first. The miracle had 
been wrought upon the Sabbath. It was for this that the 
Jews persecuted Jesus. He justified himself by an appeal to 
the continuous activity of God. As yet there was no such 
direct, insistent, comprehensive claim of equality as followed 
later. There is nothing about the self-assertion of Jesus, 
wherever found, that is inconsistent with the prophet's fore- 
cast, " He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be 



Lesson VI.] CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. 287 

heard in the street ; " nothing that nullifies his own word, 
" I am meek and lowly of heart." There is a natural, unob- 
trusive quality about our Lord's works and words, the mod- 
esty of truth, which, with his poise and power, authorizes 
his claims about himself. 

None the less, though indirectly in both act and word, the 
assertion was made. When Jesus Christ justified himself 
for healing on the Sabbath by saying, " My Father worketh 
until now, and I work," he did what no mere man could right- 
fully have done. He cited the continuous activity of God, in 
providence and redemption, filling all time, the Sabbath as 
well as other days, from the creation onward, as the justifica- 
tion, because it was the parallel, of his own activity on the 
Sabbath. Contravening as it did the Jewish law, his conduct 
was indefensible in a Jew, except as he put himself above 
the law. This, without hesitation and unequivocally, he did. 
He represented the miracle as his own act, — "I work." He 
claimed for it, as done by himself on the Sabbath, a parity 
with the self- directed, sabbatic energy of God. He put him- 
self in a relation of peculiar sonship with God. The Jews 
understood him so to do. As they construed his words, he 
added to the sin of breaking the Sabbath the more dreadful 
sin of " blasphemy," — " he called God his own father, mak- 
ing himself equal with God." Were they wrong ? If they 
were, it was an opportunity for the Christ. He might have 
defended himself against the charge of Sabbath-violation by 
parrying this later attack. He had but to show how mis- 
taken was their construction of his words to allay their 
enmity. He had only to claim that he was " the unresist- 
ing organ of a higher Being " to put the matter upon an 
entirely different footing. But he did not do so. If he 
had been the peculiar and merely human " instrument " that 
some have represented him, then this was his great oppor- 
tunity to set the matter in that light forever. But he 



288 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. [Third Quarter. 

did nothing of the kind. He did not disclaim in any- 
wise that meaning of his words which his enemies put 
upon them. He had done, -intentionally if indirectly, just 
what they accused him of doing, — he had made "himself 
equal with God." 

II. 

When the Lord saw how far his adversaries were from 
acceding to this claim, and noted that their enmity toward 
him had only been intensified by its assertion, he defined, 
positively and in detail, the equality which he had indirectly 
asserted. He was no craven, disposed to cringe before the 
consequences of the truth. On such a subject as the one 
disputed, there must be neither equivocation on his part, 
nor ground for uncertainty on theirs. 

He begins with his formula of assurance, " Verily, verily, 
I say unto you." How must the words have sounded upon 
his lips! Three times their solemn chime of asseveration 
gives emphasis to his discourse. The truth they substantiate 
is weighty, worthy of special attention, matter of reality, — 
the expression of his own conscious life as the Son of God. 

The words that follow seem to deal with the matter in 
its essential aspect as a relation between the Son and the 
Father ; in its practical aspect as requiring the reverence 
and faith of men to be given to the Son equally with the 
Father ; in its historical aspect as already manifested to 
men in the ministry of the Son of Man, bestowing spiritual 
life, effecting spiritual discrimination between men ; and as 
yet to be manifested " in the resurrection," when the Son of 
Man shall be recognized as the conqueror of physical death 
and the final Judge. The first and last of these phases of 
the matter concern exactly the same facts, defining the rela- 
tion and establishing the equality of the Son and the Father. 
They may therefore be regarded together, leaving the prac- 



Lesson VI.] CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. 289 

tical phase of the question for a final word. Our Lord's 
purpose in separating them seems to have been the better 
identification of himself, present before his hearers, with 
the personality to whom he refers as "the Son." There is 
a most significant interchange of phrases as the discourse 
unfolds. Now it is " the Son " of whom Jesus speaks ; in 
the next breath the pronouns "I" and " my " and " me," and 
in a moment his description of " the Son " as " Son of Man," 
left no opportunity for mistake. What he claimed for " the 
Son " he claimed for himself. 

What, then, is the nature and the scope of the equality 
which our Lord asserted to exist between himself and the 
Father ? Looking only to his words here used for answer, 
it seems clear, first, that it is an equality existing between 
distinct " personalities." One knows well how little adequate 
the word " person " is, in any of its meanings, to express 
just what is meant when this distinction between the Father 
and the Son is affirmed ; how likely it is to represent as 
wholly discrete those of whom it is intended to say no 
more than that there is a distinction between them. But no 
other word is available. And in this discourse our Lord so 
speaks as to compel the conception of such a distinction as 
the word implies, existing between the Son and the Father. 
There must be that which approximates our idea of a personal 
distinction when one sees the voluntary activity of another 
only to make it the model for his own, freely determined. 
Jesus said, " Whatsoever things he [the Father] doeth, these 
the Son also doeth in like manner." Love, as we know it, 
is exercised only between persons. Jesus said, " The Father 
loveth the Son." Where a trust is bestowed and received, 
there must be duality, whatever underlying unity there may 
be. Jesus asserts that " the Father hath given all judgment 
unto the Son." On another occasion our Lord did not hesi- 
tate to say, with equal emphasis, "I and the Father are one." 



290 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. [Third Quarter. 

But this very sentence, insisting as it does upon a unity, 
affirms in the same breath, but not necessarily in the same 
sense, a duality between the Father and himself. This, with 
the relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son, is the 
mystery of the Trinity. It is not a problem for the reason, 
it is a subject for faith. We rest only and wholly on the 
word of him who knew. 

It seems evident, secondly, that the equality asserted is 
inherent and essential. It is not procured or arranged ; it 
has not been seized upon. As Paul, in his own way, puts it 
for the Philippians, our Lord, " being originally in the form 
of God," did not need to count it " a thing to be grasped, to 
be on an equality with God." The equality is one of nature. 
This is expressed by Jesus, in the passage before us, in the 
use of the terms " Father " and " Son," and by his rep- 
resentation of each as acting freely, and yet in mutual, 
inevitable accord. 

In the third place, accordingly, the equality between the 
Father and the Son finds expression in the characteristic 
acts of each. On the Son's part there is that subordination 
which becomes a son, — that inability, from choice, not from 
impotence, to do anything of himself ; that readiness to re- 
ceive in trust from the Father responsibilities to whose as- 
sumption or discharge only the Father's Son is equal. On 
the Father's part there is love toward the Son, and such 
confidence of love as leads him to show the Son " all things 
that himself doeth " They have no secrets from each other. 
The action of one is sure to involve the voluntary action of 
the other. They are thus blessed reciprocally, and only so. 
Is it not just here that we may dimly discern how that Being 
who is the eternal " God over all," and before all, is " blessed 
for evermore " ? "When, as yet, he was the only One, before 
" the morning stars sang together, or the sons of God shouted 
for joy," he was no less blessed than now, when all his works 



Lesson VI.] CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. 291 

do praise him. He has never been dependent ; he has never 
known solitude. In the reciprocal blessedness of Father, Son, 
and Spirit, his life has ever been love. 

Finally, the equality asserted has its exemplification in 
the nature of the work intrusted by the Father to the Son. 
To him it is given " to have life in himself " and to impart 
spiritual life to men. Every soul " dead in trespasses and 
sins " quickened into " newness of life," is a witness to the 
co-equal authority and power of the Son. The transfer to 
the Son of the right to judge man, historically realized in 
that process of spiritual discrimination between men which is 
perpetually going forward wherever the character of the Son 
of Man is manifested and his word declared, is a testimony 
to the same effect. The hour yet to come, when " they that 
are in the tombs shall hear his voice and shall come forth," 
to enter upon a destiny determined by the standards of his 
truth and their relation to him, will end all cavil as to the 
Son's equality with the Father. In that hour " every knee 
shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father." 

III. 

Truth is for life. Every doctrine involves a duty. Our 
Lord did not hesitate to press his claims upon men so far as 
to indicate such action on their part as was requisite and be- 
coming. What he had asserted and defined as to his equality 
with the Father, he applied in two directions. 

Since the Son is equal with the Father, he is to be had in 
equal honor. Let no man think that he can please the 
Father when he discredits or dishonors the Son, " only-begot- 
ten," "well-beloved." The matter is put by Christ in the 
strongest possible way. It is twice so put. He who would 
realize the Father's purpose must honor the Father's Son 
" even as " he honors the Father, in the same way, to the 



292 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. [Third Quarter. 

same degree. He who refuses to render homage to the Son 
thereby dishonors the Father who sent him. These are 
weighty words. They require such reverence and obedience 
for Jesus Christ as men admit, instinctively, to belong 
to God. But these words are as clear as they are strong. 
There is no possibility of mistake as to their meaning. 
They are words which will yet judge some who have framed 
and defended and propagated intellectual conceptions of the 
Christ which are inconsistent with such declarations made 
by himself. They are words which impugn the worth of that 
theism which refuses to be Christian. Above all, they are 
words which shame the men who bear Christ's name and 
theoretically admit his claims, but whose disobedience to 
his precepts is practically the worst irreverence. Let such 
hear him saying to them, " Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and 
do not the things which I say ? " 

The first-fruit of the disposition to honor the Son is that 
exercise of faith which receives him as the one sent by the 
Father to be the Saviour of the world. Such a faith finds 
in his word a gospel, in his mission salvation, in fellowship 
with him eternal life. Such a faith rests equally upon the 
Father's love and the Son's, finding in the ministry of the 
Son the certification of the Father's reality, the revelation of 
the Father's purpose, and the only adequate measure of his 
love. Such a faith is its own evidence. Christ's word for it, 
he who cherishes such a faith has already passed out of the 
sphere of death into the sphere of the eternal life. "This 
is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
whom he has sent." For such a believer death will have 
no sting ; over him the grave will get no victory ; to him the 
judgment to come will bring no alarms. " There is now no 
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." 

How better, then, can we conclude our meditation than by 
the confession of our faith in the Son of God ? What words 



Lesson VI.] CHRIST'S AUTHORITY. 293 

more fitting to express that faith than those words long since 
wrought out at Nicsea, to become the perpetual protest of the 
Church against the Arianism of every age ? We believe " in 
one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begot- 
ten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of 
Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of 
one substance with the Father ; by whom all things were 
made: who for us men, and for our salvation came down 
from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the 
Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for 
us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried ; and 
the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, 
and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand 
of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to 
judge both the quick and the dead: whose kingdom shall 
have no end." 



Wesson vti. august 16. 



THE FIYE THOUSAND FED. 

John vi: 1-14- 
By Rev. Professor JOHN M. ENGLISH, Newton Centre, Mass. 

THE feeding of the five thousand was one of our Lord's 
most remarkable miracles. All four of the evangelists 
record it. That John does so is doubly significant of its 
importance ; for he mentions but four or five events in the 
entire Galilean ministry of Jesus, that extended from about 
January 1, A. D. 28, to the autumn of a. d. 29, — the period 
that mainly occupies the first three Gospels. John gives 
an account of this miracle because it peculiarly manifested 
the glory of Jesus, and because it furnished the text of 
Christ's great sermon preached the next day in the syna- 
gogue of Capernaum, which is preserved in the sixth chap- 
ter of this gospel. 

THE SETTING OF THE MIRACLE. 

According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus was now in or 
near the city of Capernaum, — the centre of his labors in 
Galilee. The miracle of feeding the five thousand took place 
on the eastern side of the lake, near the city of Bethsaida- 
Julias. 

Jesus had at least two reasons for retiring into that local- 
ity. One was that he had just heard of the death of John 
the Baptist at the hands of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of 
Galilee. This base act must have made Jesus unusually 



Lesson VII.] THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. 295 

thoughtful about his own end. At any rate, it must have 
filled him with sadness ; for he loved John both for his 
ministry and for his noble character. He wished to retire 
into solitude for meditation. The other was that the twelve 
apostles had returned from their mission of teaching and 
healing to report their work to their Master. They were 
weary. " And he saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart 
into a desert place, and rest awhile. For there were many 
coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as 
to eat." 

Jesus took his twelve disciples with him into the boat, 
and they slowly passed along the northern shore of the lake 
to the other side. The crowd, finding out that he had gone, 
poured around the head of the lake on foot. Their numbers 
were swelled from the various cities which they passed, 
for all had heard of Christ's mighty works. These were 
joined by companies of pilgrims from farther north, on their 
way to attend the approaching passover at Jerusalem, de- 
sirous of seeing and hearing the Wonder-worker, whose fame 
was ringing throughout the land. So eager were the throng 
that they went on foot faster than the little boat went by 
water, and some of them at least were on the shore waiting 
for Jesus to disembark. He made his way with his dis- 
ciples into the mountain, and there he ■ sat down with them. 
But their semi-privacy was soon invaded by the curious 
multitude that kept pouring in, and the search for quiet 
and rest was thwarted. 

We cannot believe that Jesus was sorry at the interrup- 
tion. He doubtless felt as he did on saying to his disciples, 
when they, returning with food, found him talking with the 
woman at Jacob's Well : " My meat is to do the will of him 
that sent me, and to accomplish his work." Luke says, "He 
welcomed them." Both Matthew and Mark report that as 
he saw the great multitude, he had compassion on them, — 



296 THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. [Third Quarter. 

Mark adding, in his characteristically graphic way, " because 
they were as sheep not having a shepherd." " The shepherd 
impulse," remarks Dr. Clarke, " was strong in his heart, and 
the sight of sheep unshepherded always drew it forth." It 
was never a hardship for the Master, no matter how weary 
he was or what plans he had in mind, to forget himself and 
help the needy. Is it for us ? That day which he had set 
apart as a day of quiet and seclusion from the press of the 
customary crowd, proved to be one of the busiest and most 
blessed of his life. From early morning its hours were 
spent in healing the sick and in abundant teaching. Luke 
tells us what the burden of his preaching was. He " spake 
to them of the kingdom of God," — the theme that was 
ever uppermost in his mind and heart. 

THE PROVING OF PHILIP. 

" The day is now far spent." The first evening, as it was 
called, extending from three until six, is at hand. • The 
multitude must have food. Jesus said to Philip, "Whence 
are we to buy bread, that these may eat ? " Now, Jesus 
could not have asked that for mere information, for Philip 
had none to give, as the Lord knew ; and John adds, " for 
he himself knew what he was about to do." Nor could 
he have intended simply to puzzle Philip. That would have 
been unworthy of Jesus. '• This he said to prove him." 
The question must have been intended, ultimately at least, 
to test Philip's deeper self, to call out " the true answer of 
faith." 

That is always the Lord's interior purpose in teaching 
men. He has no need of our little arithmetical calculations 
as to supply and demand, but he has need of us for the re- 
fining of our characters. With his keener insight he reads 
the possibilities that are enfolded within us, and he tries to 
draw them out. Even when he is conferring with us' for 



Lesson VIL] THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. 297 

the weal of others, as he did with Philip and Andrew, he 
never loses sight of the good that may thus accrue to our 
personal characters. Thus he keeps testing us at the springs 
of action. He cares more about us than about the things 
we handle. He would rather have us get up than get on. 
Pascal said that, though the universe might crush him, yet 
in the very act of being crushed he should be greater than 
the universe, since he should know what the universe never 
could, that he vjas being crushed. " Thou hast made man a 
little lower than God." It is with man — knowing, think- 
ing, feeling, willing man — that the Lord Christ is funda- 
mentally concerned. How to build men up into the strength 
and symmetry of his own character, that is the Lord's prob- 
lem in dealing with individuals and with society. In his 
testing of us do we respond with a requiting faith ? Do we 
give back the clear ring of genuine character ? If we do 
not, Christ's supreme concern for us and his ways with us 
radically fail. 

THE MIRACLE. 

" Jesus said, Make the people sit down." In that brief 
command how the Master towered above his two disciples ! 
They in their puny wisdom stood baffled before the problem 
of feeding the multitudes there in the desert of Bethsaida- 
Julias ; he, with the calm and the majesty of conscious 
divine power gave the order to the disciples to arrange the 
thousands for the great meal. " So the men sat down, in 
number about five thousand." 

Mark graphically describes the beautiful scene. The five 
thousand men reclined, in Oriental fashion, on the green- 
sward, by companies of a hundred and of fifty. Those com- 
panies, clad in their many-colored garments, resembled so 
many variegated flower-beds set in the rich green grass, with 
which they made a striking contrast. Five thousand men, 



298 THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. [Third Quarter. 

reclining in this orderly arrangement along the green slope 
of the mountain, must have spread over an extensive space, 
probably several acres. Yonder at one end of the area, with 
eyes uplifted toward heaven, stands the Wonder-worker, who 
is about to feed this vast crowd with the five loaves and the 
two fishes now held in his hands. Nor was this arrange- 
ment merely beautiful, it was also useful. It rendered the 
miracle manifest, since all could see that their supply came 
from Jesus, and that he had only the five loaves and two 
fishes. 

Jesus first gave thanks, — our "grace before meat;" and 
then the loaves and the fishes began to multiply, and the 
amazing wonder did not cease until the vast multitude of 
five thousand men, besides women and children, "were filled.'' 
So is it ever, when we take our little gifts, of whatever sort, 
to Christ, the Giver, and seek his blessing upon them, they 
increase and become sufficient. " Become sufficient ! " But 
let us be sure we understand what that means; for the bread 
with which the Lord Jesus thus fed the hungry multitudes 
was the common barley loaves, thin, brittle cakes, the coarse 
but wholesome food of the common people. He is glad to 
satisfy our physical hunger, but he does not provide us 
with superfluous and dainty luxuries that pamper rather 
than nourish the human body. His prayer reads : " Give 
us this day our daily bread." He here answered his own 
model petition. 

While the process of the mighty sign utterly baffles our in- 
tellectual grasp, and we must leave it as an inscrutable mys- 
tery, yet the glory of the character of the Son of God that 
shines out — oh, how resplendently ! — in the putting forth 
of his miraculous energy, we can appreciate and turn to profit. 
For that creative energy was not sheer, hard omnipotence ; 
it had back of it a heart of divine love, and a blessed pur- 
pose shot through it. Jesus never wrought a miracle to 



Lesson VII.] THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. 299 

minister to his own physical comfort, never for the mere 
gratification of the display of divine power, never for the 
promotion of his personal ambition. Each of his miracles, 
even the most astounding of them, was for the welfare of 
men. Here, as in all things else, he could have said, 
" The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister." He came to bless and to redeem every part of 
our complex nature. Compassion for men in their physical 
distress and sicknesses, in the hardship and sorrow of their 
temporal lot, in their spiritual ruin and danger of doom, 
prompted him to the humiliation of the incarnation, to the 
toil and mental anguish of his ministry, and to his death 
of sacrificial woe. He wrought this miracle, then, just out 
of his compassion for the physical hunger of the multitude. 
He was the prince of philanthropists. In this he set an 
example for his disciples, in all time, that is of the nature 
of a binding law. How slow have they been to learn and 
to obey it ! One of the encouraging signs of our time is 
the widening ministry of the Church to the physical and 
temporal weal of suffering mankind. We are beginning to 
see that men who are in the thick of the struggle for secur- 
ing bread for themselves and for their families must first 
of all be touched and reached where they are ; their pres- 
sing bodily demands must be met before they are prepared 
to taste the proffered bread of eternal life. Is there not 
here a principle of great value in coping with some phases 
of the industrial problems that are upon us ? May the 
Church of Jesus Christ be wise in seeking and in adminis- 
tering the will of its Head in this matter, which is so vital 
to the spread of his kingdom in the near future ! 

But Christ's compassion in feeding the five thousand had 
a yet deeper reach. The miracle was a sign. It was a para- 
ble in act. It was an object-lesson of the spiritual discourse 
that fell from his lips the next day in the synagogue at 



300 THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. [Third Quarter. 

Capernaum, on himself as the food of man's immortal self. 
And Jesus distinctly intended that it should be. John, the 
disciple of rarest spiritual insight into the person and work 
of our Lord, clearly saw its significance ; and so he, who 
is very sparing in his record of miracles, reports this one 
in the service of that profound address, the cursory reading 
of which shows how clearly Jesus, in his ways with men, 
ever kept in view his ultimate aim. He was and is eager, 
even to the point of consuming zeal, to give them the bless- 
ing of eternal life. "When he performed the miracle, it was 
in the hope that those who were to hear the discourse the 
next day might receive him as the bread of life. When, 
instead, many even of his disciples said, " This is a hard say- 
ing ; who can hear it ? " and rejected him, he was stung to 
the quick, and with a heavy heart he turned, in the midst 
of the general desertion, to the twelve, and asked, " Would 
ye also go away ? " When Simon Peter, as the spokesman 
of the little loyal company, answered him, " Lord, to whom 
shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life; and we 
have believed and known that thou art the Holy One of 
God," it must have been as soothing balm applied to the 
aching wound. A small remnant, at least, of his followers 
were beginning to appreciate him for what he was, and his 
cardinal mission to the world. 

THE GATHERING OF THE FRAGMENTS. 

So soon as there was no further call for the supernatu- 
ral, Jesus ceased using it. He provided the meal, which 
the disciples could not do ; he now left to them the gather- 
ing up of what remained, which they could do. There is a 
function for Christ's disciples even in connection with his 
most divine works. That function he expects them, not 
himself, to perform. At the close, then, as at the begin- 
ning, of this miracle, how conspicuous the law of the divine 



Lesson VII.] THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. 301 

economy in our Lord's operations ! It shone out both in 
the fact and in the method of saving the fragments. Jesus 
Christ is profuse in his gifts, but never wasteful. It would 
have been as wrong for his disciples not to save, for future 
use, what was left over, as it would have been for him to 
refuse to furnish the meal. 

THE EFFECT OF THE MIRACLE. 

" When therefore the people saw the sign which he did, 
they said, This is of a truth the prophet that cometh into 
the world." 

"The sign" — John's invariable term for designating Christ's 
miracles — signified to the people that the doer of it must be 
" the prophet," by whom they meant, not some exceptionally 
honored human agent of Almighty God, but the Messiah him- 
self foretold by Moses. Their notion of what the Messiah 
was, is given in the next verse. " They were about to come 
and take him by force, to make him king." He was, in their 
eyes, a mighty political and military leader. Thewonderful dis- 
play of power in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, 
inflamed the mercurial natures of those Galilean peasants to 
the highest pitch of excitement. In a moment they turned 
fanatics. They were ready to seize him and, even against 
his will, to take him to Jerusalem, the beloved capital of 
their nation, and there, in the very presence of the hated 
Eomans, crown him king, at the most sacred of their festi- 
vals, the passover, to which some of them were journeying. 
Thus was the Satanic temptation of the wilderness repeated. 
How did Jesus meet it ? " Jesus therefore perceiving that 
they were about to come and take him by force, to make him 
king, withdrew again into the mountain himself alone." 

That temptation, so fascinating to many men in every 
age, and so frequently yielded to, found in the Son of Man 
not even a faintest whisper of response. It was met as the 



302 THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. [Third Quarter. 

resisting shield meets the swift-flying spear that falls blunted 
and harmless to the ground. These Galileans were entirely 
mistaken in him. While to them the splendid sign signi- 
fied that he was a mere political Messiah, to him it signified 
— and he meant that it should to them — that he was the 
Bread of eternal life. They had totally and irretrievably 
missed its meaning. " It seemed," says Stalker, " the crown- 
ing hour of success. But to Jesus himself it was an hour 
of sad and bitter shame. This was all his year's work had 
come to ! This was the conception they yet had of him ! 
He accepted it as the decisive indication of the effect of his 
work in Galilee. He saw how shallow were its results." 1 
He could have been the popular hero of the hour. " It was 
himself who struck the fatal blow at his popularity." " He 
himself sendeth the multitude away." What a scene that 
was ! " It is almost a wonder that it has not attracted the 
imagination of some great painter, — Jesus scattering the 
multitude who are tempting him to accept a crown of 
worldly sovereignty." 

I wonder if, while we inwardly blame those Galileans for 
their carnal view of Jesus Christ, we are in reality guilty of 
the same sin ? Does our interest in him culminate in his 
being our " Bread-king " ? Are we enthusiastic over him 
only so long as we hope to enlist his power in promoting 
our worldly aims ? And are we through with him when he 
insists upon our doing as he says, instead of himself doing 
as we say ? The question of Jesus to the Pharisees, " What 
think ye of the Christ ? " is as pertinent now as it was then. 
For are we not all in danger of taking him for less than he 
is, and so of missing the best he has to give ? And in miss- 
ing that, do we not miss all ? John tells us that, when Jesus 
was in Jerusalem at the first passover of his ministry, " many 

1 Life of Jesus Christ, by James Stalker, p. 95. A very suggestive and 
stimulating book ; every Sunday-School teacher should have it. 



Lesson VII.] THE FIVE THOUSAND FED. 303 

believed on him, beholding the signs which he did." But he 
did not trust himself unto them." Their faith was a " milk 
faith,", as Luther says, and Jesus would have nothing to 
do with such a faith as that. He was not willing to be 
believed on as a mere wonder-worker. Is the Master com- 
pelled to class us with those old-time make-believe be- 
lievers ? What do we think of him as personal Lord and 
Saviour ? That is the testing question. When he declares 
to us, " I am that Bread of life," do we pray with deep spirit- 
ual desire, " Lord, evermore give us this bread " ? or do we 
let him go his way, our inner selves still hungry and starv- 
ing, and we knowing it not ? 



Irsson VIII. august 23. 



CHEIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

John vi: 26-40. 
By Key. FRANCIS BELLAMY, Boston, Mass. 

THIS crowd, hot from the oars, racing after oread, must 
have brought to the mind of Jesus his own strug- 
gle over bread not long before. In that test, when his 
Tempter wove out of the importunate demands of hunger 
the argument that bread was of more consequence than 
duty, his whole work hung on the decision. The proper 
balance between the body's comfort and the soul's true life 
was at stake. To have yielded then was to lower his stand- 
ard, to stultify his consecration. His answer was, " I can 
be hungry, but I cannot do this unworthy thing." He 
examined and closed the bread-question for himself and for 
all of us. Man shall not live by bread alone ; truth and 
duty are more than even food. How pitiful this crowd's 
avidity for the lesser good must have seemed to the man 
who would starve rather than debase his ideal ! His first 
words rebuke their mean errand, and summon them to 
work henceforth for the supreme interest, the wealth in- 
corruptible. 

Duty to work for the eternal life is thus the first thought 
in our lesson. Ye seek me, says Jesus, rebukingly, not out 
of interest in me or in the import of the signs which I 
have wrought, but because ye would be well fed. Strain 
not so for the food of the passing day, mere meat for per- 



Lesson VIII.] CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. 305 

ishing bodies. Work for the food of eternal life. That is 
the prize which the Father has ordained the Son of man to 
give you. 

Here, as in the Sermon on the Mount and in his conver- 
sation with Martha, Jesus utters his dissuasive from mis- 
placed eagerness. Our corroding cares and anxieties, the 
overload from our absorption in business, the waste from 
misdirected energy, — oh, the pity of it in the eyes of Him 
who alone saw true ! 

" For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 

Bubbles we buy with the whole soul's tasking ; 
'T is heaven alone that is given away, 

'T is only God may be had for the asking." 

But how this "Work not for the meat that perisheth" 
strikes across the habits built up in us by birth and breed- 
ing ! How it contradicts common-sense ! How many maxims 
which we are used to consider especially virtuous, it stamps 
as worldly ! What does the Lord mean ? Is the careful- 
ness which makes our homes spots of comfort, the hourly 
thrift which strives to overcome the forms of household 
waste, the foresight and combination which underlie busi- 
ness enterprise and civilization, all wrong ? Were the old 
hermits right? Were the barefoot, begging friars more in 
harmony with Jesus than the industrious, Christian home- 
makers of to-day ? So it might perhaps seem, were we to 
leave Christ's sentence half said. Eead on : " Work not . . . 
but work for that meat that endureth to everlasting life." 
It is a transfer of emphasis, made bold that it may be 
unmistakable. Men admit as important both these aims, 
but exert themselves to attain the former, while slighting 
the latter. Jesus would restore the true balance. There 
is no danger that earthly interests will suffer. So, with 
true Oriental accent, Christ dissuades therefrom by an ap- 
parent prohibition, and points to the loftier alternative as 



306 CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. [Third Quarter. 

if it were the round horizon of duty. He who was subject 
to his parents in Joseph's home and trade preached no gos- 
pel of idleness. The Working-man of Nazareth never be- 
littles frugality or toil. He rather makes the necessity for 
them the basis whence to emphasize a higher necessity. If 
earthly toil is needful, spiritual toil is so infinitely more. 
Spend not yourselves in supplying transient needs, but strive 
after the eternal gold. 

Such is the exalted course which Christ urges upon these 
common people. He is not afraid of shooting over their 
heads. They need to understand just this lesson which he 
propounds. They are hungry, yet he gives them, not as 
yesterday, the dinner they seek ; he insists that they shall 
even now see the higher aim, and live in it. But he phrases 
this with a vivid concreteness which will make them think ; 
what he speaks of is the meat that abideth unto eternal 
life. Into our age likewise Jesus comes inculcating no 
mere theoretical life. To us as to the men of his time he 
offers the concrete and the practical. He points every call 
to a nobler life by saying, "I have overcome the world." 
In this same world which so tries us, he lived, and with- 
out sin. 

The natural question of Christ's auditors was: "What 
must we do that we may work the works of God ? " They 
meant external requirements, ceremonies relating to God. 
But they stumbled into a happy wording of the true idea, 

works of God, service wherein God worketh in us. Jesus 

makes this undesigned phrase his text. " This is the work 
f God," — springing from God as the result of his indwell- 
incr, — " that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." 

Oh, brothers, would that we might forget this phrase as 
a formula, and go back to the true gospel of it ! It has 
been impoverished. To some, " I believe " is mere piece of a 
creed ; with others it covers only the initiatory act of the 



Lesson VILL] CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. 307 

Christian life. Christ means by belief infinitely more than 
either or both of these, — he means a primary effort and a 
continued state of the will. The primary effort is the accep- 
tance of what God offers in Christ. It involves on the part 
of the believer peace, entrance into Christ's way of thinking, 
and surrender in all things to his leadership. The genuine 
experience can omit no one of these. The continued state 
of mind is, moreover, as necessary to Christ's idea of faith 
as the initial act ; he sets forth as the duty and privilege 
of all men a life completely possessed by an overmastering 
conviction of duty springing from love to God. 

Here is seen the essential unity of faith and works. A 
belief truly attaching to the personality of Jesus Christ 
inevitably issues in Christlikeness. Faith is the progenitor 
of good works ; but it is also itself a work, continuous, 
permeating, fundamental, which gives cohesion and propor- 
tion to all the others. Proportion is often the main thing. 
How seldom does the good trait for which we may be justly 
famed express a general symmetry of character ! Our im- 
pulses to acts of goodness run in freaks. Heredity, circum- 
stances, training, are the forces which have built the curious 
formation of good and bad, lying side by side, which we 
recognize as our native selves. But when a man intelli- 
gently believes in the Son of God, a mightier force begins 
to work in him, promoting unity and balance among his 
virtues. Erratic impulses disappear ; moral sanity displaces 
whims. The clearer the belief, the more rounded the char- 
acter. Faith in Jesus is in any man the indispensable key- 
note to any perfect symphony of good works. 

To those listeners who cavil at believing him at all, the 
import of "belief on" Jesus is of course lost. They demand 
proof. They ask him what he can " do " and " work," as a 
sign that he has a divine right to tell them to do and work. 
He had fed them, — yes, once ; but Moses fed daily, for forty 



308 CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. [Third Quakter. 

years, a whole nation with bread from heaven. Jesus turns 
the point of their clumsy challenge by a double contrast 
between God's ancient work through Moses and God's pres- 
ent offer to them. " Truly Moses gave you not the bread 
from heaven ; but my Father gives you the bread from 
heaven, the real bread. For the bread of God is that com- 
ing down from heaven and giving life to the world." 

As will be seen, Jesus does not yet identify himself with 
the bread, as the old version implies. He says in effect : 
Moses was only an agent ; but now my Father gives with- 
out agent, intermediary, or priest, directly to the individual. 
None are so low or so distant from him as to be beyond 
God's immediate touch. Furthermore, the bread which 
Moses gave was only apparently from heaven. It had no 
divine properties ; it spoiled like other bread, it conveyed no 
more life than other bread. But my Father now gives you 
bread truly from heaven, endowed with divine properties, 
able to communicate God's life to all mankind. The hearers 
catch at least a part of his meaning. They had demanded 
an authentication ranking with the manna-sign. They hear 
him declare explicitly that he has something infinitely better. 
Naturally, perhaps sceptically, they therefore say, " Lord, 
evermore give us this bread." 

Christ's testy auditors do not in fact desire the true bread ; 
yet as they have asked him for it, he says plainly, " I am 
the Bread of life." How many of our Lord's profoundest 
announcements were made to unpromising listeners ! This 
sensual, impatient company were the first to hear the thrill- 
ing declaration of the mystic truth which the Lord's Supper 
keeps before the world. Jesus had approached it gradually 
In describing the true bread he had set forth his own attri- 
butes, thus creating expectancy and desire. They ask him 
for this bread for evermore, and he replies with quiet majesty, 
" T am that for which you ask." 



Lesson 'VIII.] CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. 309 

Will they try to understand this mystery ? Even to the 
believer it is ineffable. But these unbelievers do not try to 
grasp it. They say stupidly, Will he give us his flesh to 
eat? Christ therefore at once repeats and explains, "He 
that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth 
on me shall never thirst. ' It was as if he had said, Stagger 
not at what I say. Believe it. You are weak ; you cannot 
master yourselves ; you want strength of will. Come to 
me in open and irreversible self-surrender, and you shall 
never feel weak again. You are vexed, agitated, distressed ; 
repose on me with a lasting faith, and you shall be lifted 
above circumstances, you shall have peace of mind. 

After that promise, experience has always written, " Tried 
and proved." Yet our own slowness to trust it, notwithstand- 
ing all experience, makes its summary rejection by the mob, 
who came to Christ for material, not for spiritual food, seem 
very natural. Jesus was not surprised ; yet the light must 
be flashed upon them, if only to manifest that they loved 
darkness rather than light. " Ye have indeed seen me, and 
believe not," he said to them, reproachfully. They had 
asked for a sign in order that they might believe him. Of a 
spiritual truth no sign can be offered but the truth itself. 
To those waiting to be convinced, like John the Baptist or 
Christ's intimate disciples, miracles might corroborate the 
Lord's spiritual claim. The unsympathetic would discredit 
the miracle itself. To such a generation no useful sign 
could be given. Even the unpronounceable wonder of life 
from the dead, — '■ of an unconquerable life, proving that 
Christ was indeed the Bread of Life, — even the resurrection 
could not convince those to whom spiritual life was mean- 
ingless. Jesus offered these people the supreme example 
of spiritual life, — himself. They had watched him ; they 
had wondered at his purity and his tranquillity ; they had 
heard his words of strength ; they had seen his translucency, 



310 CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. [Third Quarter. 

— the glory of the eternal world shining through his truth- 
ful manhood. If all that was without effect, — if they had 
seen him, yet believed not, — what could possibly move 
them to believe ? Alas ! men to-day see it all, yet believe 
not. 

Jesus now tells the listeners that though they may refuse 
to walk it, his new and living Way has not been cast up 
in vain. What he has been saying to them consists of 
larger truths than they dream. The door is open wide, and 
faces many ways. "All that the Father giveth me shall 
reach me ; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise 
cast out." 

Here is, first, a reminder that others will accept Jesus, 
if they do not. They enjoy a rare privilege in hearing 
Christ's words ; but a rarer lies in being one of those natures 
whom God's dealings with them have made hungry for 
spiritual food. Blessed are the poor in spirit, whom God 
has caused to know that they are poor. Every one who has 
been prepared for Christ, every spirit which the Father of 
spirits gives him, inevitably gravitates toward Christ, inevi- 
tably reaches Christ. 

Next is Christ's note of great assurance to the sinful and 
the fearful, — one more winsome word for the individuals 
in the company who may be almost persuaded : None who 
come to him will be thrust away. Here, before the eyes 
of that querulous populace, the Saviour of mankind opens 
a door for inquirers to remotest ages. It is shut to none. 
Whoso fails to go in thereat is assured that the fault is his, 
not God's or Christ's. " I cannot be received," says one^ " for 
I am steeped in vice." " I will in no wise cast you out," 
replies the Son of man. " I have cared for nothing but the 
world and myself," cries another. " I will in no wise cast 
you out," is the answer. "lama hardened backslider," 
wails a third. " I will in no wise cast you out," repeats the 



Lesson VIII.] CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE, 311 

voice divine. " I have slighted grace, trampled on love, and 
rejected the Spirit," we hear from a fourth. " I will in no 
wise cast you out," rings forth still the everlasting Gospel. 
Is it possible for Love to say more ? Not one soul that 
ever genuinely comes to our Lord Jesus Christ will be 
rejected. 

Christ proceeds to indicate the perfect harmony of this 
work of his with his Fathers will. " I came down from 
heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent 
me." Men are not to think of him as separate in his interests 
or purposes from the Father. He works on no limited lines. 
He is come, not to save a few favorites of his own, but to ful- 
fil the broad and benign will of him who created all men. 
He himself is lost in that eternal will. 

Where did men get the phrase that " God outside of Christ 
is a consuming fire " ? It is not in scripture. It was born 
of that perverse theological spirit which is so zealous for 
Christ as to be willing to belittle and blaspheme God. 
Against all impurity the Son is as much a consuming fire as 
the Father ; toward the wayward the Father is as deeply and 
everlastingly tender as the Son. God so loved the world 
that he sent his Son. The Father's will was Christ's impulse 
and support. Beyond its reach, outside its gracious sweep, 
he never went so much as in thought. When we come 
to Christ, what do we but yield to the Father ? Our imme- 
diate and cordial reception is assured because that is the 
Father's will. . 

Christ's final thought in this lesson is that he who trusts 
himself to Christ takes no hazard. Nothing which the 
Father gives to the Son can be lost. " This is the will of him 
that sent me, that of all which he hath given I should lose 
nothing, but should raise it up at the last day." How broad 
this asseveration ! The neuter is used, and suggests the 
whole of that creation now subject to " the bondage of cor- 



312 CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. [Tiiikd Quarter. 

ruption." Does the Great Teacher mean a palingenesis when 
it shall be evident 

" That not a worm is cloven in vain; " 

that all which seems to us to be human wreckage but sub- 
serves the weal of humanity ; and that of nothing, animate 
or inanimate, given him by his Father, can there be such a 
thing as absolute loss ? So much we cannot affirm, though 
Paul's picture, in Eomans viii., of the complete Christian re- 
demption, comprehends no less. But we may at least be 
certain that in the use of the neuter the Lord intends to 
make his pledge to your soul and mine broad enough to 
scatter all our fears. For he follows this general assurance 
with a promise still more explicit touching the individual 
believer : " This is the will of my Father, that every one that 
beholdeth the Son and believeth on him should have life 
eternal, and I will raise him up at the last day." 

An Alpine guide held out his hand for a traveller to step 
upon. There was no other footing; an abyss was beneath. 
The man hesitated. But the guide said, " That hand never 
lost a man." That is what Jesus says to every hesitating 
soul : through all the centuries he has never lost a man who 
trusted him. Yet he does not, after all, appeal to human ex- 
perience to substantiate his declaration. We are not compe- 
tent judges ; we see apparent failures of apparent believers : 
but into the future of their lives, or into their deepest 
hearts, we cannot see at all. So Jesus argues the security of 
trust in him solely by reference to the will of the Father. 
He assures us that his hand can never lose a man ; and when 
we ask for a voucher, he points to the indefeasible will of the 
Father. 

" This is reasoning in a circle," says some honest sceptic. 
" Your famous Teacher appeals to the validity of faith to 
prove that faith is valid. He should ground his assertion 



Lesson VIII.] CHRIST THE BREAD OE LIFE. 313 

on tangible human experience, not on assumption." But 
what human experience other than faith can prove the worth 
of faith ? To the dead no evidence can show life to be 
valuable. No series of data without human life can prove 
the existence of human life. Eternal life is an affair of indi- 
vidual consciousness, its security a matter of individual faith. 
Eternal life, just as Jesus taught, rests wholly on faith in the 
eternal Father. " This is life eternal, that they should know 
thee, the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even 
Jesus Christ," is Christ's own definition. Faith in the 
Father is before all and under all. Jesus attested his divine 
spirituality by constant appeals to the Father. Men were to 
believe in him because they believed in God. No firmer 
guarantee could be given of his power to keep forever all 
that was committed to him than simply that it was his 
Father's will. 

Let us sum up. To the listeners at the lakeside in Galilee, 
as to all who will listen now, the Saviour's loving mes- 
sage is : " Work for the Bread of eternity which I offer, 
because the Father hath sent me to give it you. Believe on 
me, because I am that Bread, and faith in me is the work 
which the Father desires from you. Not one who trusts me 
will I thrust away, because that is not only my will, but the 
will of him that sent me. I shall lose nothing of all that is 
mine, but will at the last day raise up every soul that by 
faith in me enters into the life eternal. This, too, is my 
Father's will, which cannot fail. 

" Lo, I am come ! 
In the roll of the book it is written of me : 
I delight to do thy will, O my God ! " 

Such, friends, is the lesson of Saviourhood, born out of 
Fatherhood. 



ilesaon IX. august 30. 



CHRIST AT THE FEAST. 

John vii: 31-44- 
By Rev. O. P. GIFFORD, Brookline, Mass. 

/ T" V HE Feast of Tabernacles fell upon the fifteenth day of 
A the seventh month, — the close of September and the 
beginning of October, — and was celebrated during eight 
days. It served the double purpose of commemorating the 
forty years' wandering in the desert and the annual harvest 
of the fruits of the earth. During the week of the feast the 
people dwelt in tents made of boughs, placed upon the roofs 
of houses, in the streets and open places of the city, and by 
the roadside without the walls. The city and its immediate 
surroundings were transformed into a camp of green branches. 
The gathered thousands gave themselves to rites recalling 
the painful pilgrimage of the wandering Israelites, and God's 
care of his people. A daily libation made in the temple 
reminded of the water gushing from the rock. Two cande- 
labra, lighted at eventide, symbolized the pillar of fire and 
cloud. To the seven days' feast the law added an eighth, 
as a memorial, possibly, of Israel's entrance into the Promised 
Land. Josephus calls this day the most sacred in the He- 
brew year. Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles were the 
chief Jewish festivals. Every Jew was expected to attend 
at least one of the three ; Jesus had absented himself from 
the other two. 

The third day of the week Jesus suddenly appears in the 



Lesson IX.] CHRIST AT THE FEAST. 315 

eastern, or Solomon's, porch, teaching the people. His words 
stirred them to the depths, as the waters of the Galilean 
lake were wont to be stirred by the winds rushing down 
from Mount Lebanon. The hearers were greatly excited. 
His truth, he answers them, is divine in its origin, his au- 
thority is God, not Eabbinic precedent, — nay, he is himself 
sent from God. Some are moved to faith, others to more 
bitter opposition. The temple-guard is ordered to seize him 
on the first occasion that offers. 

" The last, the great day of the feast " comes, and Jesus is 
again in the temple. The pilgrims, in festive array, leave 
their booths at daybreak to share in the services, each carry- 
ing a lulabh — branches of myrtle, willow, and palm bound 
together — in his right hand, and the fruit or boughs of the 
goodly tree, the paradise-apple, in his left. Thus provided, 
the worshippers divided into three bands. One remained in 
the temple to attend the morning sacrifice. The second went 
to a place called Moza, where they cut down willow-branches, 
with which they made a leafy canopy over the altar. The 
third followed, to the sound of music, a priest bearing a 
golden pitcher. At the fountain-gate within the city wall 
was the Pool of Siloam, — the King's Pool of Nehemiah, — 
made by King Hezekiah to divert from a besieging army the 
spring of Gihon, which could not be brought within the city 
wall, and yet to bring its water within the city. Hence the 
name "Sent" (a conduit), or "Siloah," as Josephus calls it. 

Peaching the Pool of Siloam, the priest filled the pitcher 
and returned, followed by the procession, reaching the tem- 
ple just as they were laying the pieces of sacrifice on the 
great altar of burnt offering. Welcomed by a three-fold blast 
of the trumpet, he entered the " water-gate," — named from 
this ceremony, — and passed into the court of the priests. 
Here another priest joined him, bearing the wine of the 
drink- offering. The two ascended the rise of the 1 altar and 



316 CHRIST AT THE FEAST. [Third Quarter. 

turned to the left. Here were two silver funnels with nar- 
row openings, leading down to the base of the altar. The 
wine was poured into the eastern, the water into the wes- 
tern funnel. Following this came the responsive chant of the 
Great Hallel, Psalms cxiii. to cxviii. inclusive. The outpour- 
ing of this water was the central ceremony of the feast. 

As the memorial service ended, Jesus, standing by, lifted 
up his voice and said, " If any man thirst, let him come unto 
me and drink." The call was not an interruption, but an 
interpretation of the feast. The rite symbolized the out- 
pouring of the Holy Spirit. " This spake he of the Spirit," 
says John. Thus speaking amid the great historic and pro- 
phetic festival of Judaism, Jesus claims to fulfil it in him- 
self. What the smitten Rock was to the perishing Israelites, 
sustaining life, that he is to a thirsty race on the pilgrimage 
of life. All that the Jews longed for, all that had been 
prophesied concerning the coming of the Spirit, he claims to 
fulfil. The claim is one of the most comprehensive which 
Jesus ever made. Not only is he teaching truth from God, 
and of himself as sent by God, but he is also the great Res- 
ervoir or Fountain of spiritual life and power for all man- 
kind. He is the Smitten Rock on the edge of the wilderness 
f life,— the Rock that followed Israel through its long 
wandering in the wilderness, the Divine Presence which then 
accompanied and supplied the needs of the chosen people. 
The not yet incarnate Son of God was the Leader of Israel. 
The ascended Christ is the Leader of the human race; he 
is the Pool of Siloam within the city walls of the New 
Jerusalem. The river of the water of life springs from the 
throne of the Lamb ; the throne, symbol of absolute rule, is 
the fountain of the water of life; by the river's banks grows 
the tree which is for healing and for food. In all his as- 
sumption of divine sonship and power, Jesus never made a 
more sweeping claim than this. 



Lesson IX] CHRIST AT THE FEAST. 317 

On this triple declaration made by Jesus Christ we have 
three closely related thoughts. 

1. Jesus Christ the Reservoir of spiritual power. 

2. Believers in Christ channels of spiritual power. 

3. Faith in Jesus Christ the condition of spiritual 
power. 

1. Jesus Christ is the world's great Reservoir of spiritual 
power. The eternal, uncreated, self-existent God works 
through the agency of his Son. " No man hath seen God 
at any time ; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom 
of the Father, he hath declared him," " given an exegesis " of 
him. As the preacher unfolds, declares, makes known the 
treasures of truth hidden in a text, so Christ hath unfolded, 
declared, made known the life of God. As the tree, through 
fibre, leaf, flower, and fruit, unfolds and brings to view the 
treasure that is in the seed, so Christ hath unfolded in deed 
and word and life the very essence of God. Christ's life and 
teachings are an unfolding of God, " for in him dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily." " All things were 
made by him, and without him was not anything made 
that was made." "Who is the image of the invisible God, 
the firstborn before every created thing ; for by him were 
all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, 
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, 
or principalities, or powers : all things were created by him 
and for him ; and he is before all things, and by him all 
things consist." God " hath in these last days spoken unto 
us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, 
by whom also he made the worlds; who being the bright- 
ness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and 
upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had 
by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of 
the Majesty on high." 

The visible universe in its ordered and splendid beauty is 



318 CHRIST AT THE FEAST. [Third Quarter. 

the expression of God through Jesus Christ. The thought 
that lies back of all the visible signs of Nature, and that 
waits only the spiritual body to become known to man, is 
the thought of God in Christ. The spiritual Gulf-stream 
that has tempered human history and softened the winter 
of the world's sin, is an outflow from Christ. The heat and 
light that have turned winter to summer and night to day, 
in spite of sin, are the outpouring of Christ's life upon a 
world that lieth in the Wicked One. 

Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Juda?a, " God manifest in 
the flesh." The Church of Christ was born in Jerusalem, 
and is the Holy Spirit manifest in the flesh. But the com- 
ing of the Spirit depended upon the going of the Christ : 
only as he returned to the Father could the Spirit come to 
man. " The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." 
As the light comes to the eye laden with pictures of the 
world without, so the spirit of prophecy comes laden with 
witness to Jesus. That spirit fell upon the eye of Abraham's 
soul. He saw Christ's day and was glad. The same spirit 
fell upon the soul of Moses ; he esteemed " the reproach of 
Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." It fell 
upon David's soul, and he burst into song ; upon the soul 
of Isaiah, and his words kindled the eastern horizon of the 
coming day with the splendid light of prophecy. 

The spirit of prophecy was laden with the testimony of 
Jesus as the winds are laden with the perfume of flowers 
when they come to us across the blooming fields of June. 
" The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; 
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." Speaking as they were moved, they filled 
their prophecies with the person and kingdom of Jesus. 
Cutting an apple into thin slices at right angles with the 
core, and holding the slices up to the light, you will see the 
outline of the flower that foretold the fruit. Frophecy has 



Lesson IX.] CHRIST AT THE FEAST. 319 

become history. So in the life of Jesus you find packed 
away the prophecy of the ages. He sent forth the spirit 
of prophecy, preparing men for his coming, then gathered 
the prophecies back into himself in fulfilment. Luke tells 
Us, xxiv. 27, that " beginning at Moses and all the prophets, 
he expounded in all the scriptures the things concerning 
himself." The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews proves 
that all the Old Testament ritual was simply the shadow, 
Christ being the reality. But the reality exists before the 
shadow. Through the Spirit Christ threw an outline shadow 
of himself on Jewish life in forms and ceremonies. Through 
the Spirit he filled the heart of the Hebrew people with 
a passionate longing for himself. After his ascension he 
poured out the Spirit without measure. Peter's interpreta- 
tion of the pentecostal blessing is found in Acts ii. 32, 33. 
" This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are wit- 
nesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, 
and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy 
Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." 
Thus the fulfilment of all the mighty prophecies of the past 
touching spiritual power are in the care of Jesus. The 
Holy Spirit comes to honor Christ, to bring to mind truths 
he has taughtT, to take of Christ's things and show them to 
us, to convict of sin when Jesus is doubted, to regenerate 
the human heart, and to people the earth with a spiritual 
race. From the laying of the corner-stone of the universe 
to the last finishing touch, Christ is the fountain of spiritual 
energy ; from the alphabet to the completed thought of God 
perfectly expressed, Christ is the " Word ; " from the key- 
note through all the age-long training of the orchestra and 
chorus to the perfect harmony, Christ is the theme. 

The cry on the day of the feast, " Tf any man thirst, let 
him come unto me and drink," is Christ's call to the human 
race : spiritual thirst is as widespread as the race. To be 



3^0 



CHRIST AT THE FEAST. [Third Quarter 



a man is to thirst for God. It is also a revelation of the 
only place where the thirst can be satisfied ; for in Christ is 
stored the spiritual life and might of the universe. 

2. Believers in Christ are channels of spiritual power. 
Christ not only satisfies the thirst of the man who comes and 
drinks, but changes the empty life into a flowing fountain, 
a source of life to others. The Samaritan woman by the 
well-side simply wanted the water of life, that she might 
herself be satisfied. But she has to tell her story, and no 
sooner has she done this than " many of the Samaritans of 
that city believed on him for the saying of the woman." 
Aaain and again the disciples went out to teach and heal 
hTthe name and power of Christ, and found that the spirit- 
ual energy that had marked his words and works marked 
theirs in turn. After the Pentecostal blessing the apostles 
became gushing springs of spiritual life, churches sprang up 
about them like oases about springs in the desert, their ser- 
mons were springs of living water, their epistles were reser- 
voirs of spiritual inspiration, their very touch brought health 
to the diseased, life to the dead, and at one time the streets 
were lined with the sick, " that at least the shadow of Peter 
passing by might overshadow some of them; and they 
were healed every one." Silver and gold they had none, 
spiritual power they had. Silver and gold we have, spiritual 
power we in large measure lack. The early victories of the 
Church were along the lines laid down by Christ. Each little 
band of Christians became a centre of spiritual life. The 
early Christians were not soldiers. Their victories were 
not won by the sword. They were not statesmen, they did 
not rule in the forum. They were not millionnaires, they 
did not control markets. They served the Trince of 
Peace, wielding only "the sword of the Spirit." They did 
not make or interpret laws. They did not appear on the 
world's '"Change." Yet as the winter snows melt at the 



Lesson IX.] CHRIST AT THE FEAST. 321 

touch of the south wind and flow down in quickening 
streams, the civilization, customs, and manners of a pagan 
empire changed form under the new influence. Wherever 
the stored sunlight which we call coal is touched by the 
finger of fire, the treasured heat and light pour out again ; 
wherever these spirit-filled men were obedient to the touch 
of the risen Christ, his life and light flowed forth again. 
The Bride of Christ not only carried the name, but wielded 
the might of her absent yet present Lord. His promises 
were signed by him, and left blank for her to fill. Eight 
royally did she dispense the Bridegroom's treasures. As the 
dynamo finds expression in the carbon point, Christ found 
expression through his followers, till the night of sin was 
flooded with the glory of salvation. Every follower of Christ 
became a river source, living water flowing from him. Des- 
erts were changed to gardens ; a new civilization grew up, 
adapted to the world's needs. These men carried life with 
them. Each one became a rock in Horeb, and the people 
drank. Smitten by persecution, they gave spiritual life the 
more freely. The rock was turned into a standing water, 
the flint into a fountain of waters. 

Ezekiel's vision found fulfilment, the deepening waters 
carried life and health, the sanctuary stream gave the world 
food and health ; it was a fountain for sin and for unclean- 
ness, living water ran east and west both summer and winter. 
Every believer became a temple of the Holy Ghost, and thus 
a source of life. Unlimited life and health flowed from 
each. Christ's promise is undated. Unchangeable himself, 
his purpose and power abide the same to-day as when his 
challenge rang out over the thousands on the feast-day. He 
is willing and able, not only to satisfy the seeking soul, but 
to make every man a source of everlasting weal to others. 
The Spirit was poured out upon all flesh on the day of 
Pentecost. As the oil given by the prophet filled every 



g22 CHRIST AT THE FEAST. [Third Quarter. 

vessel set forth, and was of equal value, no matter what the 
shape of the dish, so the Spirit of Christ is given to all, and 
fills each, bringing its own power with it, and giving this 
power to every one who takes it in. 

3. The condition to the attainment of spiritual power. 
There is but one condition of spiritual power: it is faith. 
"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of 
his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The New Testa- 
ment lays strong emphasis on faith as a condition of salva- 
tion, and here Christ conditions spiritual power on faith. 
" Without faith it is impossible to please God," or man either. 
Distrust sets a limit to the good which one man can do an- 
other. The farmer must have faith in his seed, or he will 
not sow it ; the sailor must have faith in his ship, or he will 
not leave land upon it ; the merchant must have faith in the 
money presented, or he will not give goods in return for it ; 
the student must have faith in the teacher, or what is in the 
teacher cannot flow into the student. Friendship between 
man and man depends upon faith ; so does friendship be- 
tween man and God. The spiritual power in Christ cannot 
flow into man except the hand of faith lift the gate and let 
in the flood. What comes to the farmer may or may not 
justify his faith in the seed, but nothing at all will come 
without faith enough to sow. The ship may fail the sailor, 
but he will never leave the shore unless he has faith enough 
to risk himself. The money may prove counterfeit, but there 
can be no buying and selling without faith. The' teacher 
may have neither knowledge nor inspiration for the student, 
but the student will find neither without faith and trial. 
Faith is simply persuasion, — a consideration of something 
as true, a crediting, a placing of confidence in something. 
Faith is persuasion : he who believes is he who is persuaded 
that a man or a thing is worthy of confidence. The word 
for " faith " in Greek comes from a root meaning " to bind." 



Lesson IX] CHEIST AT THE FEAST. 323 

As in Latin fides, " faith," and fcedus, " a treaty," are related, 
so the word " to bind " and the word " faith " in Greek are re- 
lated. Treaties are made between parties that have some 
confidence in each other, and the compact, being kept, 
strengthens the faith. So a man is persuaded that Christ 
is trustworthy, and then trusts to him ; and the result deep- 
ens the confidence. This being persuaded, argues a study of 
proof. Men are not persuaded of the truth of a statement 
or of the trustworthiness of a person by ignorance or a re- 
fusal to study the claims made. " Faith cometh by hearing." 
We pay heed to what others have found, and persuaded of 
the truth of their assertions, yield faith, when what was 
true for them becomes true for us. The first disciples of 
Jesus saw and heard him. From this sprang up their confi- 
dence in him. As they trusted him, he proved himself true 
to them. They yielded more and more to him, and with this 
came increased proof. Having proved him for themselves, 
they preached to others what they had seeu and heard and 
handled of the Word of Life. These, persuaded in turn, had 
faith, and this faith deepened and broadened as the years 
went by. To-day we have the written statements of what 
these men knew, believed, trusted, and, as it were, experi- 
mented with scientifically. We take their statements, study 
them carefully, and are persuaded they told the truth. 
The conviction deepens with study. We yield ourselves to 
the Christ, and he proves himself to be all we thought. 
The promises taken into the soul by faith, as seed is sown, 
thrust down root, spring up, and bear fruit. As we believe, 
the promised power comes, and we become in very truth 
sources of spiritual power. The only limit to this power is 
the limit which we ourselves set, by a spirit of unbelief. 
Deeper study, a scientific spirit of testing Christ, proves that 
he is all he claims, in that he gives us all he promises. 



nmon X. September 6. 



T 



THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD. 

John via: 31-47. 
By Rev. W. H. P. FAUNCE, New York Citv. 

HE frankness of Jesus draws us to him. Like the 
surgeon's knife, it awakens our gratitude even while 
it cuts into our quivering flesh. This lesson is a memorable 
example of the remorselessness of perfect love. Jesus is 
speaking to certain " Jews which had believed him." That 
they we're not full disciples may be indicated by the fact 
that they are still described as "Jews," and that they did not 
believe on him, like the hearers mentioned in the previous 
verse, but simply " believed him." They acknowledged his 
claims in a slight and superficial way, but did not yield them- 
selves to him as Master and Lord. Therefore Jesus pursues 
his usual method of testing new disciples by the utterance of 
searching and startling truths. At his very first sentence 
these professed followers are surprised, offended, and made 
indignant; their pride of race and position is wounded. 
But & Jesus with a swift succession of fearless sentences lets 
in the light and lays bare the Jewish heart. The object 
of the following dialogue is to show to the Jews, and to us 
who now read it, the utter and irreconcilable antagonism 
between their position and his, and to make ^ it appear that 
whoso turns from Christ, clearly seen, turns to the dark, 
and does so because of a spiritual affinity and inward 
alliance with the kingdom of darkness ; while, on the other 



Lesson X.] THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD. 325 

hand, love to Christ, instead of being a mere personal ac- 
knowledgment, is the evidence and avenue of affinity with 
the infinite Father : whoso loves Christ is God's child. 

The course of thought is quite clear, and the record, though 
of course it is not a stenographic or verbatim report, bears 
on its face the naturalness and freedom of an actual 
conversation. 

The first truth on which Jesus insists is that only persis- 
tent discipleship brings freedom. If these Jews would become 
"truly" his disciples, they must "abide in his word:" that 
is, live in and by the truth which he brought into the world, 
— precisely as a tree finds steadfastness and nourishment by 
abiding in the soil. Through such genuine discipleship they 
would attain knowledge and freedom. To " know the truth " 
is to come into most intimate relation to it. It is not to 
hold certain propositions and dogmas, and feel assured that 
they are correct ; such holding may be abject slavery, and 
such a man may utterly fail to be affected by the truth. 
Christ did not come into the world to give us a set of correct 
opinions : he came that we might have life. To know the 
truth is to clasp it with might, mind, and soul, to yield ut- 
terly and forever to the message which the Son of God has 
brought. 

It is clear that such knowing brings freedom, ■ — freedom 
from superstition, from care, from fear, from the traditions 
of men, from sin ; and that no other liberty is genuine. In 
the moral world freedom comes only through submission to 
law. A really free soul is steadfast as the stars in their 
courses. This truth finds noble expression in Wordsworth's 
" Ode to Duty," with its fine closing line, — 

" In the light of truth thy bondman let me live ! " 

But Jesus in his demands goes far beyond all our ethical 
teachers. He requires submission, not merely to " duty " or 



326 THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD. [Third Quarter. 

« law " or "truth," but to himself. To bow to Christ is to 
share the freedom of deity. To take Christ's yoke is to 
break every other yoke. Freedom, individual or national, 
social or spiritual, is not carved out by the sward or 
wrought out by plough or by pen ; it comes through sub- 
jection to the truth, which in its last analysis is submission 

to Christ. 

But the Jews object that Christ's talk about freedom 
is irrelevant, since they were and always had been free. 
« We were never in bondage to any man." Had they for- 
gotten Pharaoh and Egypt, Sennacherib and Babylon ? Had 
they forgotten whose "image and superscription" was even 
then written all over Palestine? But in one sense this was 
true, — they had never been reduced to literal and legal 
slavery. Always they had claimed to be a free nation, hav- 
ing no God but Jehovah, no king save his anointed. " How 
■then sayest thou," they cried, " Ye shall be made free ? " In 
answer Jesus unfolds the enslaving power of sin in words 
that may be the germ of Paul's awful personification of sin : 
" It is no longer I, but sin that dwelleth in me." The worst 
slavery is that of which we, like these Jews, are unconscious. 
To feel our chains is the beginning of release. To sin is to 
part with liberty, to come under the dominion of an alien 
and hostile power. "The slave of sin:" who can fathom 
the depths of degradation which those words imply ! Yet 
Jesus is describing his audience. Discipleship or slavery! — 
this is the alternative which he presses home in this 
discourse. 

Jesus now probes deeper, and affirms that the hostile 
attitude of these Jews is to be found in their affinity with 
the entire realm of evil. Their spiritual parentage is the 
secret of their present dislike of Jesus. A man's deeds are 
those of his moral father. Isolated sins are impossible. All 
sin, so far as we can see it, is like Melchizedek, "having 



Lesson X.] THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD. 327 

neither beginning of days nor end of life." Every wrong 
deed has a hideous ancestry and a numerous progeny. " If 
the assassination could trammel up the consequence !" But 
no earthly power can trammel up the consequence of wrong, 
and no human mind can see where wrong began. We talk 
of sins, Christ, of sin. He speaks, not of divers faults and 
frailties and mal-adjustments, but of the universal taint and 
poison, — sin. Paganism had its abstract virtues to be com- 
mended and vices to be avoided ; Christianity sees all virtues 
as rooted in that holiness " without which no man shall see 
the Lord," and all vices as phases of the one great malady. 
To speak of a sin or a virtue is almost entirely contrary to 
New Testament usage and to the thought of Christ. He 
saw no human act alone, but always in its eternal relations. 
He looked before and after, and dealt not with transitory 
symptoms but with the racial difficulty. He was no moral 
lecturer with a code of spiritual etiquette. Men are not to 
be saved by applying to their conduct any index expurga- 
torius. Fruits come only from roots. Men may judge us 
by our fruits, all else being to them invisible; but God 
judges by our roots. Back of all that men can see, or that 
we can ourselves see, back of all purpose and volition, in the 
sub-conscious region of the soul, is the root which leads 
toward the light or toward the darkness, and feeds and con- 
trols all our moral life. The Gospel is a remedy for the 
roots of human nature, not a scheme to hang fresh fruit on 
rotten boughs. Goodness and badness are not in certain 
single deeds that can be catalogued and classified, so that des- 
tiny is decided according to the preponderance of one kind of 
deeds over the other, — this is the popular and shallow view. 
" Deep conceptions of sin and of grace are the notes of a true 
theology." Good and evil depend on moral relations and 
affinities. A good man is such by virtue of his union with 
infinite goodness, and a bad man is such by virtue of his 



328 THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD. [Third Quarter. 

union with all evil. " An evil man out of the evil treasury 
of his heart : " what a frightful thesaurus of sin does the 
evil man carry within ! " But a good man out of his good 
treasury : " however such a man's deeds may stumble and 
falter, the " treasury " is behind, and shall surely express 
itself at last in a pure and perfect life. Such a treasury is 
supplied from heaven. In the memorable antithesis of 
Jesus : " I do the things which I have seen with my Father, 
and ye also do the things which ye have heard from your 
father." 

Is this a clear indorsement of the Jewish belief in a per- 
sonal devil ? It is not easy to explain it otherwise. Jesus 
everywhere falls in with that belief, whencesoever it was 
derived, and apparently assumes such a being even in the 
Lord's Prayer. We may say, of course, that this was a 
rhetorical rather than a philosophical assumption, and we 
may find it easier to construct a theodicy without a Satan. 
But. we must remember -that all moral evil as we know it 
is personal, and we may well remember also the question 
of a modern thinker : " What is the use of getting rid of 
the devil, if the devilish still remains?" 

In this lesson the doctrine of the fatherhood of God finds 
its necessary limitations. This truth of the divine father- 
hood over all human beings has received special emphasis 
in our day, and it cannot be emphasized too much. Even 
to the idolatrous Athenians Taul said : " We are his off- 
spring." He is the Father of the saved and the lost, of the 
prodigal among the swine as truly as of the elder brother 
in the home. All human barriers fade and shrivel in the 
presence of Christ's word, " Our Father." Yet in the deep- 
est sense, the sense of this lesson, God is the Father only 
of those who recognize him as such and live in filial com- 
munion with him. He cannot sustain the same relation to 
Nero and to Paul, to Augustine and to Attila. Again we 



Lesson X.] THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD. 329 

face the terrible antithesis of Jesus : " My Father . . . your 
father." 

We notice three .results of this hostility of the Jews to 
Jesus. 

1. Jesus is to them unintelligible. "Why do ye not 
understand my speech?" "My word hath no advance in 
you." The divine word struck against them as against 
heavy armor, and could make no " advance " into their 
souls. They heard him speak in an unknown tongue. He 
is utterly a riddle to them, almost as to creatures living in 
space of two dimensions our physical life of three dimen- 
sions would appear monstrous and . self-contradictory. To 
incapacity explanations are useless. Their organ of spirit- 
ual apprehension was atrophied. As the blind man thought 
the color red like the " sound of a trumpet," so does the 
sordid, petty, blinded soul reduce spiritual phenomena to 
the level of its own capacity, and reject what cannot be ex- 
pressed in terms of its own experience. To how much of 
the modern world is the teaching of Christ still puzzling 
and absurd ! To the spirit which looks on life as an arena 
for commercial gladiators, to the spirit enslaved by selfish- 
ness or fear or hate, the Sermon on the Mount is a mys- 
tery, martyrs are fanatics, and Jesus the insoluble enigma 
of history. 

2. They reject the truth. " Because I say the truth, ye 
believe me not." These men played fast and loose with 
their own convictions. Again they showed their spiritual 
affinity, for Satan " is a liar and the father of the liar," — 
so it seems best to understand the end of verse 44. Falsity 
to one's inner light, one's highest perceptions, involves fal- 
sity to God and to all men. To reject the best we know is 
always to reject God. Sublime is the picture of Cardinal 
Newman when at the great crisis in his life he lay at 
death's door in a foreign land, repeating : " I shall not die ; 



330 THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD. [Third Quarter. 

I have a work to do in England. I have not sinned against 
light, not against light." He had opposed and forsaken 
friends, church, and native land, but he had not failed to 
follow the " kindly Light." 

3. They desire to kill Jesus. " Ye seek to kill me," not 
as a rabbi or prophet or king, but as " a man that hath told 
you the truth." Thus has evil ever sought to stab and 
burn and crucify the truth. It is the last step in opposi- 
tion, the lowest level of sin, where one cries, " Evil, be thou 
my good!" 

Notice, finally, the pathetic appeal of the Sinless One. " If 
I say truth, why do ye not believe me ? " This unanswered 
question still echoes through the ages. That voice was for 
three days silenced by Jewish malice and Koman despo- 
tism ; but now from the heaven it speaks in tones that grow 
clearer with the lapse of years, tones that pierce through all 
our din and strife and make themselves heard in every soul: 
" If I say truth, why do ye not believe me ? " 



ilestfon XL September 13. 



CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. 

John ix : 1-11, 35-38. 
By Rev. P. S. MOXOM, Boston, Mass. 

PASSING along one day, perhaps to the temple, Jesus 
" saw a man blind from his birth." It is evident that he 
gave him more than a glance, for the attention of the disciples 
was not arrested altogether, we may be sure, by the novelty 
of the case, but by the Master's earnest gaze. Their thoughts 
are revealed by the question they ask, just as Jesus' thoughts 
are revealed by the words : " As long as I am in the world, I 
am the Light of the world." To the disciples the blind man 
was a puzzling example of the principle, which in common 
with the Jews of that day they held, that every infirmity and 
affliction was the direct penal consequence of some specific 
sin. To Jesus the blind man was a striking expression of 
the spiritual helplessness and need of humanity, and the act 
of healing which he already contemplated was a suggestive 
type of his entire mission in the world. 

The disciples, used to such pitiful spectacles, are but 
slightly moved to pity. The man has for them less a hu- 
mane than a metaphysical interest. They begin to specu- 
late. Not a more certain touch of nature appears in the 
narrative than this. The deepest problems of metaphysi- 
cians invade the thinking of the commonest men. " A met- 
aphysical doubt to fishermen!" says Maurice. "Yes; and 
in the garrets and cellars of London metaphysical doubts 



332 CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. [Third Quarter. 

are presented to you by men immeasurably more ignorant 
than were those fishermen even before Jesus called them, — 
the very doubts with which the schools are occupied, only 
taking a living, practical form." 

" Master, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he 
should be born blind ? " 

The question illustrates many of the speculative difficul- 
ties into which men fall. They form or adopt their theories 
of God, the world, and life, and then run upon facts that do 
not fit the theories. How seldom it occurs to them that in 
such cases theories, and not facts, must change ; that facts, 
clearly seen and comprehensively grasped, are the necessary 
basis of all theories worth holding or likely to endure. 

Jesus once said : " Except ye . . . become as little children, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." What is it 
to become as little children, but to rid the mind of prejudg- 
ments, and to present a frank and receptive heart to the 
teaching of God in the facts of revelation and life ? Christ's 
reply overthrows at once the pharisaic dogma that led men 
to infer specific guilt from specific affliction. " Neither this 
man sinned, nor his parents." This is not a denial of im- 
perfection in parents and son, or of a connection between 
sin and physical ill, but it is a declaration that the blind- 
ness was not a punishment. It says that not all ill is to be 
traced to individual wickedness. Pain and sorrow are not 
in the world merely as a castigation for human sin. Jesus' 
words suggest the deep, true philosophy of evil. This man's 
blindness came, " that the works of God should be made 
manifest in him." The tragic experiences of human life are 
made the means of revealing God's power and goodness. 
Every pain and sorrow, and even the sins of men, are oppor- 
tunity for God. That which so baffles our shallow thinking 
is instrumental to the accomplishment of God's beneficent 
purposes. What we consider and sometimes resent as inex- 



Lessox XL] CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. 333 

plicable evil, God suffers in order that his works may be made 
manifest. In this direction, at least, lies the reconciling 
truth that shall 

" Vindicate the ways of God to men." 

God's " works " are works of wisdom, love, ' righteousness, 
and salvation. By them he reveals himself and his glory. 
The process of man's redemption and spiritual education is 
the process of the divine self-disclosure and the true divine 
self-exaltation. God's love triumphs not in spite of evil 
so much as through evil ; and thus what seems the quite 
remediless disaster of the world becomes tributary to the 
enlargement of life. 

To Jesus the presence of ill was no discouragement, but 
an incentive to labor. "It stirred the pulse of his pity, love, 
and action. His spirit went forth to meet it with the exul- 
tant passion of the Saviour-heart. So ought it to be with us. 
The pains, sorrows, and wants of men are opportunities to 
us as they were to him. Jesus says : " We " — not " I," as 
in the common version — " We must work the works of 
him who sent me." Jesus declares it to be his mission to 
" work the works of God," — to heal the sick, feed the 
hungry, console the sad, refresh the weary, inspire the dis- 
couraged, enlighten the blind, cleanse the foul, strengthen 
the weak, and raise the dead. These things " we must do. " 
No Sabbath law of hair-splitting rabbins can interfere with 
this "must." Ordinances and precepts are subordinate to 
the real interests of men. Not this law or that convention, 
but man, is of first importance. 

Jesus here further identifies himself with men in his ex- 
press consciousness of limitation. He looked at life as we 
must look at it. For him in his earthly state all life was 
concentred in the present. Opportunity and duty are now, 
he says. His night's advancing shadow is seen in the omin- 



334 CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. [Third Quarter. 

ous hostility that thickens about him. Soon his earthly 
work will end. The day is the time for action. Whatever 
of experience or achievement the future may hold for him, 
present duty impels him as if all eternity hung upon it. 
There is, indeed, in his sense of the brevity of life no ner- 
vous fear and no regret, but a solemn earnestness. Whatso- 
ever his hand finds to do, he must do with his might. That 
is the true temper. Man's duty is to live fruitfully, careless 
of death, careful only of using for good, to the full measure 
of its possibility, each moment as it comes. Even Jesus, 
with the cross before him, and the great spiritual crisis of 
his earthly experience thrusting itself upon him before- 
hand, slackens no whit his attention to the business of 
the moment. Such is the true life of faith, doing the work 
fchat lies next, and leaving the future with God. 

The words, " While I am in the world I am the Light of 
the world," clearly bring out Christ's sense of his mission. 
The blind world is typified in the blind man. He is shut 
out from the sweet light of day. The multitudes, by their 
ignorance or perverseness, lose the sweeter light of love and 
truth. This distressing defect makes Jesus feel the signifi- 
cance of his presence on earth. " I am the Light of the 
world." " I am the Life of the world." He came that men 
might have life, and have it abundantly. God is light, and 
in him is no darkness. God is life ; in him man lives and 
moves and has his being. In the Son, God discloses and im- 
parts himself as both the light and the life of mankind. Con- 
genital blindness has in it to man's natural sense that element 
of hopelessness which the darkness of the unregenerate heart 
has to our quickened spiritual sense. As Jesus confronted 
physical blindness with power to turn the opaque eyeballs 
into open windows, through which earth and heaven might 
pour their surprising beauty and grandeur upon the waiting 
mind of the mendicant, so has he power to heal men's spir- 



Lesson XI,] CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. 335 

itual blindness, to open in their souls avenues through which 
shall pour floods of divine beauty and truth. 

It is significant that in this instance Jesus healed without 
being asked. The mute appeal of need was enough. Be- 
sides, not the subject alone of the miracle, but the disciples 
and the Pharisees and the multitude, needed the lesson of 
the miracle. It was an illumination as well as a healing, 
bringing a burst of light from Heaven itself. 

Christ's use of spittle and clay may have been a concession 
to the limitations of his observers. Many believed these 
substances to possess medicinal virtues. But the main rea- 
son seems to have been that he might gain time. He was 
seeking the man's soul. The healing might be too sudden 
to accomplish the Master's full purpose. The anointing, the 
journey to the pool, the washing, and the return, all gave the 
man time to think, to adjust his mind to the new experience 
that was breaking upon him, to reflect upon the great Per- 
sonality through whom he was to receive not only eyesight 
but vision of soul. 

What a moment was that when the blessed light first 
broke in upon him, — the infinitely various landscape, the 
golden sun, the blue, unfathomable sky ! Eecall Milton's 
lament, in the third book of " Paradise Lost," over his loss 
of sight, beginning, " Hail, holy light ! " Oh, the rapturous 
song that, had the experience been reversed, might have 
poured from the poet's heart! 

The man " went away therefore, and washed, and came 
seeing." Astonishment possesses all. There is even incre- 
dulity as to the man's identity. But the man says, " I am 
he. A man called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, 
and said to me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. And 
I went away and washed, and received sight." 

Great issues both for the man and for the Pharisees 
are bound up in this " mighty work," — salvation for him, 



336 CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAX. [Third Quarter. 

judgment for them. "When the people heard that it was 
Jesus who opened the blind man's eyes, they asked, " Where 
is he?" The man said, " I know not." He knew simply 
that one called Jesus had healed him. Who Jesus was. he 
knew not ; one thing he knew, that whereas he had been 
blind, he now could see. 

As the fact of his experience was not dependent on any 
theory, so the fact of his cure was not dependent on his un- 
derstanding the process, or even knowing who wrought it. 
He knew the name, but not as yet the personality. He 
knew Jesus simply as an unseen presence and as the gra- 
cious dispenser of marvellous power ; that was all. 

You may be delivered from spiritual blindness, and at first 
not know who set you free. There is in many men, perhaps 
in all, a susceptibility to divine influence which lies below 
conscious faith. Sometimes God works savingly in the soul 
before he is revealed to consciousness as the Saviour. All 
highest vision, all perception of spiritual good, whether in 
Christian, Jew, or Pagan, is from God. He is " the Light 
that lighteth every man who cometh into the world." Sooner 
or later God discloses himself, shining to give the regen- 
erated subject " the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ." But the regeneration of the world is 
not limited by the conscious perception which men now have 
of him who saves. 

The colloquy between the healed man and the Pharisees is 
most interesting and instructive. The Pharisees have the 
worst of it, despite all their advantage of position, culture, 
and dialectical skill. They speak from a theory, he out of 
experience. They appeal to their system, he to invincible 
fact. They are beaten, and, furious on this account, promptly 
adopt the usual resort of bigots in their conflict with reason, 
— that of force ; they cast him out of the synagogue. It is 
established " orthodoxy " dealing with dissent. Vital experi- 



Lesson XL] CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. 337 

enee counts for little with Pharisees unless it conform to 
precedent and dogma. 

" Jesus heard that they had cast him out." This man has 
accepted risks for his unknown Healer. The Healer now 
takes risks for him. Men who pretend to be the ministers of 
truth and salvation doubt, despise, and reject him. Jesus 
seeks and finds him, and conveys to him, excommunicate 
though he is, a better blessing than even sight. " Find- 
ing him, he said, Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? " 
The answer is childlike in its simplicity. " Who is he, 
Lord, that I may believe on him ? " The heart is ready for 
faith. It is not a mere benefactor whom this man apprehends 
now. He has grown rapidly. Blindness has been taken 
from soul as well as from body. His very trial has opened 
his heart for the coming revelation. This One who has 
healed him, and whom till now he has never seen, this One 
to whom he has already borne witness and for whom he has 
already suffered, is no longer a mere voice, nor merely " a 
man called Jesus," but a prophet of the living God, — nay, 
the Messiah and Son of God himself. The questioning heart 
already anticipates the answer. " Jesus said unto him, 
Thou hast both seen him, and he it is that speaketh with 
thee." Blessed moment of faith ripening into assurance ! 
"And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him." 

Let us note three or four simple lessons from this signifi- 
cant story. 

1. We may learn from it to abstain from those superficial 
and dogmatic judgments on human life which, seeming to 
honor God with ready explanations of evil, really dishonor 
him, and which are often cruelly unjust to men. True faith 
as well as love " beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things." Evil is in the world, 
and man is sinful as well as unfortunate. Wickedness works 
wretchedness, and penalty follows iniquity as echo follows 



338 CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. [Third Quahteb 

voice, or pain the incision of the knife. But not all pains 
are punishments. Let despairing as well as cynical doubt be 
silent. Great as sin is, God is greater. Where sin abounds, 
grace superabounds. This is not the devil's world, but God's. 
The blind, the miserable, the sorrowing, and the sinful are 
his children, whom he is leading to himself, and through 
whose very maladies and mistakes he is making his goodness 
and power more triumphantly to appear. Ask not whose sin 
causes this or that evil, but let evil and want everywhere 
be stimulus to working the works of God. It is easy to 
speculate, easy to build theories and to draw out dogmatic 
conclusions. And it is easy, alas ! to condemn. The great 
achievement is to live in the spirit of the patient, pitiful, and 
ever-helpful Son of God. 

2. Let us learn that the supreme business of life is unsel- 
fish service, and that the time for service is now. The " day " 
is not only this brief lifetime, it is exigent need, it is 
present opportunity, it is power to do what lies before us. 
The " night " is not merely death, it is neglected need, lost 
opportunity, unused or wasted power. To serve and help 
men, and to do it now, is to " work the works of God while 
it is day ; " and this is at once the true business, the satisfy- 
ing joy, and the lasting glory of life. 

Let others curiously question if they will, but do you 
follow Jesus, and draw souls with you to him. 

" Ask God to give thee skill in comfort's art, 
That thou may'st consecrated be, 
And set apart unto a life of sympathy ; 
For heavy is the weight of ill on every heart, 
And comforters are needed much 
Of Christ-like touch." 

3. Let us learn the wisdom and power of Jesus' method 
in reaching men. He authenticates himself to men by his 
works as well as by his word, — not merely by miraculous 



Lesson XL] CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. 339 

works, but by works that are divine in their goodness. The 
Healer and Helper of men thus convincingly justifies his 
claim of divine kinship. No argument has the force and 
breadth of this argument. He saves men, he opens blind 
eyes, he revives the sick of soul, he gives health and peace. 
The best apologetics we can find or use are in Jesus himself. 
" If I work not the works of my Father, believe me not." 
This is his own test. Works are to be judged, and in the long 
run are judged, not by the element of marvellousness in 
them, but by their character and purpose. So judged, the 
works of Jesus authenticate him as the Son of God and 
Saviour of the world. Bring men face to face with Jesus ; 
then they too, like the blind man who was healed, will at 
last say, " Lord, I believe," and their faith will express itself 
in homage and service. 

4. Finally, let us learn the true nature of faith. Faith is 
not mere credulity, it is an attitude and an act of the soul. 
Its object is not a proposition, but a person. It reposes not 
on greatness or power alone, but on goodness. We may be- 
lieve many doctrines, yet what the doctrines are be of little 
moment. It is of unspeakable moment that we trust the 
living, loving God, who in his well-beloved Son reveals him- 
self to our hearts and invites our worship. This is the ques- 
tion of questions which the seeker for souls will wisely and 
faithfully put : " Dost thou believe in the Son of God ? " The 
assenting answer of the awakened heart to this inquiry is 
the confession of faith that carries in it the essence of truth 
in all the creeds, and witnesses to the triumph of divine love 
in the human souL 



ILmon xii. September 20. 



T 



CHKIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

John x : 1-16. 
By Rev. HENRY M KING, D. D., Albany, N. Y. 

HE treatment which the blind beggar, whose eyes Christ 
had opened, received at the hands of the Pharisees, 
disclosed their character as false teachers and cruel guides 
of the people, and suggested the contrasts which Christ 
proceeded to draw. The emphatic words, " verily, verily," 
were never employed by Christ to begin a discourse, but 
were always used in the midst of a conversation to arrest 
the attention of his hearers and fix it upon the weighty 
import of the truths he was about to utter. Christ's parley 
with the Pharisees was not yet ended. Against the dark 
background of their heartlessness and falsehood he painted 
the charming picture of his own tender, self-sacrificing love, 
and the purpose of his divine mission on earth. 

This he did in three parables, or rather similitudes, taken 
from a suggestive pastoral scene familiar in Oriental lands. 
The imagery was found in the every-day life of the Jews, 
and was frequent in their sacred literature. Nothing could 
have been more natural, or easily understood, or impressive. 
It was one of the great Teacher's skilful rhetorical uses of 
common scenes and events. It was the beautiful illustra- 
tion of truth by life. It was the spiritualization of the 
earthly and the commonplace. 

We can easily bring to our minds the scene which Christ 
and his hearers had in theirs " A sheepfold in the East," 



Lesson XII.] CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 341 

says Godet, " is not a covered building like our stables, but 
a mere enclosure, surrounded by a wall or palisade. The 
sheep are brought into it in the evening, several flocks being 
generally assembled within it. The shepherds, after com- 
mitting them to the care of a common keeper, the porter, 
who is charged with their safe-keeping during the night, 
retire to their homes. In the morning they return, and 
knock at the closely barred door of the enclosure, which 
the porter opens. They then separate each his own sheep, 
by calling them ; and after having thus collected their flocks, 
lead them to the pastures. As to robbers, it is by scaling 
the wall that they penetrate into the fold." From this 
simple scene, still preserved in its essential features in the 
East, Christ not only exposed the true character of the 
Pharisees in their relation to the people, but unfolded some 
of the richest and sublimest truths about himself and his 
spiritual kingdom that ever fell from his lips. There are 
no words that contain more of the heart of the Gospel, and 
none that appeal more powerfully to the faith and affection 
of men. 

The three similitudes form a gradational succession. Step 
by step Christ advanced in the development of his thought 
and the assertion of his high claims, cautiously preparing 
the way for the reception of himself and his truth. To have 
at the outset declared himself to be the good shepherd, with 
all that that title signified, would have been to close all 
hearts against him and doom himself to a unanimous rejec- 
tion. As it was, notwithstanding all his precaution there 
was a new division among the Jews about him, and the 
majority of them said, " He hath a devil, and is mad." So 
difficult was it for Christ, as the Son of God, to win a recog- 
nition in the hearts of the men whom he came to save. 

In the first similitude Christ drew a contrast between 
the false and the true spiritual teachers. With a single 



342 CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. [Third Quarter. 

breath he outlined the pharisaic character and spirit. " He 
that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but 
climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a rob- 
ber." All admitted the simple statement of fact, though they 
did not see the application. The robber is known by his con- 
duct and methods. He seeks the sheep, not for their good, 
but for his personal advantage. He neither loves the sheep 
nor is loved by them. On the other hand, the distinguishing 
marks of a shepherd are well known. He enters into the 
fold by the door that was made for that purpose. He has 
no thought and no need to seek admission in any other way. 
The porter knows him, and lets him in ; and when he is in 
the fold the sheep know him, and follow him when he calls 
them by name. The picture is very simple and beautiful, 
and true to life. The sheepfold can hardly refer to the 
Jewish theocracy or the Christian Church as such, but rather 
to the whole company of devout, God-fearing, truth-loving 
souls, regardless of any organized fellowship or visible en- 
closure. Much of the language is drapery and costume. 
The porter is neither Moses, because the law leads to Christ, 
as Chrysostom taught, nor John the Baptist, the announcer 
of Christ and his kingdom, as Godet teaches, nor the Holy 
Spirit, as many others teach ; but he is simply an embel- 
lishment of the picture, to make it more vivid and striking. 
Nor is it necessary to give to the door a spiritual meaning. 
Having seized the central thought or thoughts of the alle- 
gory, the imagery can be safely treated as such. The main 
thoughts are these : There are thieves and shepherds, false 
teachers and true, — those whose interest in the flock of God 
is selfish and cruel, and who need expect no following, and 
those whose sympathy and rightful leadership are recog- 
nized, and whose voice is sure to meet with a response. 

As yet Christ has made no application of the parable. 
Undoubtedly by the "thief" and the "robber" he meant the 



Lesson XIL] CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 343 

Pharisees, who professed to be the guides of the people, and 
were seeking to influence them to their hurt. But he left 
the application to be inferred. Undoubtedly by the shepherd 
he meant himself. But not yet was he ready to make a 
declaration which would mean so much. At present he 
left that also to be inferred. To the mind of Christ it was 
all plain enough. " But they understood not what things 
they were which he spake unto them." Their minds were 
attracted, but not enlightened. Into their mental confusion 
Christ proceeded to pour the clarifier of his advancing 
thought. 

In the second similitude the scene is the same, but the 
use of it as applied by Christ to himself is changed. The 
contrast between the robber and the shepherd is for the mo- 
ment set aside, and a new and strange contrast introduced ; 
namely, between the robber and the door. The door is now 
made the prominent feature in the picture. Christ makes it 
a symbol of himself, which it could not have been in the 
previous similitude. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am 
the door of the sheep." This is not an explanation of the first 
parable, but a new parable, though the imagery is in part the 
same. The sheep are the true children of God. Christ now 
represents himself as the only means of entrance into the pro- 
tection and blessedness of God's saving love. It is as if he 
had said, " I am the way, the truth, and the life." All that 
ever came before him, claiming to possess the keys of God's 
kingdom and representing themselves as the divinely author- 
ized door, were not the door at all ; they were thieves and 
robbers. This language does not refer to the true prophets of 
God, who had ever pointed to the coming Messiah. Nor 
does it refer to those who actually claimed to be messiahs. 
The language refers simply and plainly to those who by 
their professed knowledge of God and his law, and their 
relation to the theocracy as teachers and guides, claimed to 



344 CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. [Third Quarter. 

be able to determine the conditions of entrance into or ex- 
clusion from God's spiritual kingdom. This the Pharisees 
did with an authority that was absolute, with a wisdom that 
was incapable of being taught, and with a sense of sufficiency 
that left no need and no room for Christ. They prescribed 
the conditions of entrance, and made them cruel enough. 
They shut out not only the whole Gentile world, but the Jew 
that was born blind, and all who, like him, refused to bow to 
their authority. To them Christ said, " I am the door ; by 
me if any man enter in," be he Jew or Gentile, shepherd or 
sheep, "he shall be saved." It seems probable that Christ's 
thought here is general, that it includes the shepherds as well 
as the sheep. The parable is aimed at those who professed 
to be shepherds and were not. Finding pasture is the duty 
of the shepherd. The professed shepherds themselves 
needed to be saved. " I am the door," said Christ, to both 
shepherds and sheep. All religious teachers must acknowl- 
edge Christ as the only entrance into truth and life and 
safety ; otherwise they are not only as thieves and robbers to 
the flock, but they are themselves outside of the fold of God's 
covenanted protection. Christ may also have hinted here at 
that sublime truth which in a few moments he distinctly 
enunciated, — that the kingdom of which he was the door 
and the entrance, was not circumscribed by the narrow wall 
of the Jewish theocracy, or hemmed in by the palisade of a 
national exclusiveness. " If any man " is blessedly sugges- 
tive of the universality of God's offered grace and the extent of 
the kingdom of his dear Son. Christ is the one door of salva- 
tion, but it faces toward every quarter of the habitable globe. 
Christ now reaches the climax of his parabolic discourse. 
What was hinted at in the first similitude is openly avowed 
in the third. The tenth verse is commonly looked upon as 
the conclusion of the second similitude; it more properly 
forms the introduction to the third. Christ seems to hesi- 



Lesson XII] CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 345 

tate before making this final, culminating declaration of his 
character and mission, lest the minds of his hearers should 
be still unprepared to receive it. It is as if he had said : I 
have been speaking to you of thieves and robbers, of those 
who care not for the flock of God but to do it harm, of false 
and cruel shepherds, unworthy of the name. You have not 
understood my meaning. But this you know, " The ' thief 
cometh not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy." My 
mission is different. " I am come that they might have life, 
and that they might have it abundantly." And now what 
I have been intimating I boldly declare : " I am the good 
shepherd ; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." 
The " I " is emphatic, as in all this discourse. 

It is difficult for us to comprehend the full force of this 
declaration. Christ was speaking to those to whom the 
shepherd-life was most familiar, who were wont to repeat in 
strains of significant praise, " The Lord is my shepherd ; I 
shall not want," and to call themselves " his people, and the 
sheep of his pasture," and whose sacred scriptures again and 
again represented the coming Messiah as a shepherd, as 
the one divinely appointed shepherd who should seek out 
the scattered and lost sheep, and fold them and feed them 
" in a good fold and a fat pasture," " gathering the lambs in 
his arms, and carrying them in his bosom." Alford says this 
was " the Messiah's best known and most loving office." So 
that when Christ declared, and that there might no longer be 
any misunderstanding, deliberately repeated the declaration, 
" I am the good shepherd," he announced himself as the 
expected Messiah, he asserted plainly his divinity, he claimed 
that he had come to be to the Jews and to all men the shep- 
herd-manifestation of God. And when he added, " As the 
Father knoweth me and I know the Father," it was as if he 
called God to witness to the veracity of his assertion and 
the genuineness of his claim. This accounts for the effect 



346 CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. [Third Quarter. 

which the discourse had upon the hearers. Tt seemed to 
them like blasphemy which could be ascribed only to dia- 
bolical possession. The introduction of a new character, 
namely, the hireling, at this point in the discourse, was for 
the purpose, not only of asserting by contrast his love for 
the flock of God, but of reasserting his messiahship. He 
was not some one appointed and employed by the Messiah, 
he was himself the good shepherd, the veritable Messiah of 
God ; and his character would be substantiated by the great- 
ness of his love in the vicarious sacrifice of himself. 

In using this figure, therefore, Christ claimed to be more 
than an ordinary human shepherd, however tender his in- 
terest in the flock and however great his fidelity. He 
claimed to be the ideal, the perfect, the divine shepherd, 
possessing the shepherd characteristics in their infinite ex- 
cellence, illustrating to a shepherd-people their highest con- 
ceptions of the being and providence of God, and fulfilling 
the most cherished prophecies of their expected Messiah. 
And no title borne by the Son of God, among the many 
that set forth his character and work, has ever been dearer 
to the hearts of his people than this. The figure was con- 
spicuous in early Christian art, whose rude but loving hand 
was wont often to trace the shepherd with his crook or with 
a lamb folded in his bosom ; and the same figure has been 
the inspiration and the melody of Christian song in all the 
centuries. 

The shepherd-title of Christ is expressive of an intimate 
and holy relationship, and implies certain great facts both 
on his part- and on the part of his followers. 

It implies on his part, first, ownership. Christ speaks of 
his followers as " mxj sheep." He is no hireling; the flock 
is his own. Indeed, he has a triple claim upon us, and a 
threefold right to call us his. We are his by creation, by 
preservation, and by redemption. As if the first two claims 



Lesson XII.] CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 347 

were not enough, lie adds a third, that the completeness of 
his ownership may be undisputed, and the genuineness of 
his interest undoubted. This fact lies at the basis of our 
religion, and its acknowledgment is an essential element of 
Christian faith, — the absolute sovereignty of Christ over the 
soul. " Ye are not your own, ... ye are bought with a 

price." 

" I 'm thine, Lord, and thine alone, 
I 'm thine by every tie, — 
By duty's claims, by love's glad choice, — 
For thee to live or die. 

" There 's not an angel blest in heaven 
So bound to thee as I : 
To them thy love its gifts has given, 
For me Love's self did die." 

Secondly, this relationship implies on the part of Christ 
acquaintance with his own. " I know my sheep." He has 
knowledge of them personally ; he calls them by name. In 
the judgment of the world the separation may not be clear, 
but Christ knows. 

" The names of all his saints he bears 
Deep graven on his heart." 

Not one of them is lost from his knowledge or care. His 
mark is upon them, as visible to his eye as the owner's 
initial which is painted upon the flock that grazes upon a 
New England hillside. The shepherd of the parable misses 
the one sheep that is wandering, though ninety and nine are 
left. Christ never loses sight of the atom in the bulk, of the 
star in the constellation, of the individual sheep in the flock, 
of the single soul in the countless multitude of his disciples. 
And, thirdly, this relationship implies on the part of the 
shepherd protection. Christ says little here about feeding 
the sheep; that is taken for granted. The good shepherd 
will surely lead the flock into the green pastures and be- 
side the still waters. But the whole emphasis is laid upon 



348 CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. [Third Quarter. 

the safety of the flock, and the price at which it is secured. 
" The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." " I lay 
down my life for the sheep." It is not certain that the 
doctrine of penal substitution is taught in these words. 
But Christ does teach the sacrificial nature of his love, that 
his devotion to men did not stop short of the surrender of 
his life, that somehow their safety and their life could he 
secured only at the price of his suffering and death. 

On the other hand, this relationship implies on our part 
an affectionate confidence. The sheep know the shepherd's 
voice. " I know mine own, and mine own know me." The 
comparison of the knowledge existing between the Father 
and the divine Son expresses not so much the degree of 
knowledge as its 'quality. It is a knowledge based upon 
mutual confidence and love. The relationship is one of de- 
lightful intimacy. True faith in Christ is born in the heart.' 
To know Christ is to love Christ. It is not enough to hear 
the good shepherd's voice, but we must be familiar with it. 
There must be a sweetness, a melody, an attractiveness 
about its tones, which win our recognition and kindle our 
emotions, just as the voice of the risen Jesus touched the 
heart of Mary, and lifted it above its sorrows and its fears. 

This relationship also implies on our part a cheerful 
obedience. " The sheep follow him." When he calls, they 
respond. Wherever he leads, they go. Their sustenance, 
their comfort, their safety, their life, depend upon their 
ready obedience. This is the characteristic of those who 
are Christ's. Those who bear the name of " followers " must 
follow. Those who follow are followers, and those only. 
They follow, not their own perverse inclinations, or the un- 
sanctified customs of society, or the dictates of false teachers 
and guides, but they follow Christ, his footsteps, his com- 
mandments, his spirit. This is the path of wisdom, of 
safety, and of eternal life. 



Lesson XII.] CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 349 

Yes, all that follow are followers. Christ now announces 
the extent of his redemptive purpose, and turns his eye out 
over the Gentile world and down the coming ages. "Other 
sheep I have that are not of this fold." They are not yet 
gathered to the little company of my disciples, nor indeed 
are they included within the Jewish nation. " Them also I 
must bring, and they shall hear my voice," as it is caught 
up by my faithful witnesses and echoed in all lands in obedi- 
ence to my instructions. This will be the test, not only of 
Christian discipleship, but of right character and of the love 
of truth, righteousness, and God. " Every one that is of the 
truth heareth my voice." " No man cometh unto the Father 
but by me." Christ proclaims himself as the channel of 
God's grace to the world, the founder of the universal reli- 
gion, the teacher of the absolute truth, the mediator be- 
tween man and man as well as between man and God, and 
the unifier of the scattered members of the human family. 
" And they shall become one flock, [with] one shepherd." 
There shall not be many flocks, owned by many shepherds, 
in one fold, as in Christ's day, but the sheep of many folds 
shall be united in one flock, under the leadership and pro- 
tection of the great shepherd and bishop of souls. There 
is here no intimation of a great visible organization which 
shall include all Christ's followers. The unity is a spiritual 
unity ; it is brought about by a personal relation to Jesus 
Christ. Being united to him, we are thereby united to 
each other. Whosoever will hear his voice and follow him, 
shall share all the benefits of the good shepherd's infinite 
love and sacrifice. He is a member of Christ's one flock, 
and at the evening of life will be safely folded in heaven's 
everlasting; shelter. 



THE FOURTH QUARTER. 



STUDIES IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 

{Concluded.) 



Lesson 




I. 


October 4. 


II. 


11. 


III. 


18. 


IV. 


25. 


V. 


November 1. 


VI. 


8. 


VII. 


15. 


VIII. 


22. 


IX. 


. " 29. 


X. 


December 6. 


XL 


13. 


XII. 


20. 



; Christ raising Lazarus." By Rev. P. E. Dew- 
hurst. 

: Christ foretelling his Death." By Rev. Edward 
Braislin, D. D. 

' Washing the Disciples' Feet." By Rev. Lemuel 
C. Barnes. 

: Christ comforting his Disciples." By Rev. 
President Albion W. Small, Ph. D. 

: Christ the True Vine." By Rev. C. C. Brown. 

The Work of the Holy Spirit." By Rev. 
Thomas E. Bartlett. 

' Christ's Prayer for his Disciples." By Rev, 
John R. Gow. 

'Christ betrayed." By Rev. Professor W. N. 
Clarke, D. D. 

'Christ before Pilate." By Rev. F. Clat- 

WORTHY, D. D. 

' Christ crucified." By Rev. Z. Grenell, D. D. 
' Christ risen." By Rev. Charles A. Reese. 
' The Risen Christ and his Disciples." By Rev. 
Professor J. M. Stifler, D. D. 



iUstfon I. October 4. 



CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. 

John xi: 21- J^. 
By Rev. F. E. DEWHURST, Burlington, Vt. 

IN this house of sorrow at Bethany, unfamiliar and for- 
gotten customs accompany the one solemn fact which 
no lapse of time has yet. made obsolete or unfamiliar. The 
forms through which we express our sorrow in burying our 
dead have changed with the progress of years and civiliza- 
tion ; the emotions which are aroused, the sorrow experi- 
enced, the tears which flow, — these are the familiar and 
perpetual elements, the touch of nature which makes the 
whole world kin. 

Underneath the manifestations of any human life is al- 
ways the human heart ; and its woes and sorrows awaken 
responses in all other hearts that are human : for men have 
a kinship in pain which time and distance do not destroy. 
Through this kinship we may, even after this lapse of cen- 
turies, enter the chamber where the sisters of Lazarus sit, 
surrounded by their mourning women, and bear them a 
sympathy perhaps more genuine than any then felt. 

Although we read the story in the light of the whole 
event, learning from it why Jesus delayed his coming, and 
although we know that his heart was full of tender solici- 
tude toward these his stricken friends, we nevertheless re- 
spond with deep feeling to that exclamation of mingled 
surprise and sorrow with which first Martha, then Mary, 
23 



354 CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. [Fourth Quarter. 

greets him on his arrival, — " Lord, if thou hadst been here, 
my brother had not died." It is not an expression of unbe- 
lief, it is the cry of a wounded and disappointed faith. It 
would be unjust to bring the confidence of these women in 
Jesus to the test of our own. The result, which is to us the 
most obvious part of the story, was not to them as yet a fact 
or a dreamed-of possibility. They believe that Christ, if 
he had been in Bethany, could have prevented their brother's • 
death. He was not there. Even when they summoned 
him, he did not hasten. It was now the fourth day since 
the burial, and the spirit, which according to their traditions 
hovered about the body for three days, as if unwilling to 
leave it, had finally departed. The three " days of weep- 
ing " were over ; the seven " days of lamentation " were just 
beginning At this stage the delaying Master appears. The 
utterance of mingled faith and disappointment with which 
these sisters greet him is one of the best evidences that 
they are not the mere mouthpieces of an impossible piety. 
There is about their behavior a humanness that we readily 
appreciate. 

But can we discover in this story anything touching the 
emotions of Jesus himself? Can we get any adequate im- 
pression of what was going on in his own mind and heart 
amid these scenes ? Does he stand as a passionless spectator 
of these sorrowful experiences ? Does he move among the 
events as the mere instrument of a divine purpose, the mere 
worker of a sign which shall indeed have evidential value 
respecting himself, but no human meaning and relationship ? 
Nay, the incident is full of hints which bring before us 
a human Christ, quick in appreciation, full of sympathy, 
susceptible toward the varying impressions which the cir- 
cumstances create. We may feel sure that in those days, 
between his reception of the news about Lazarus and his 
departure for Bethany, his sorrow was not surpassed even 



Lesson L] CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. 355 

by that of the sisters in their home. When he reaches them 
and sees their sorrow, his tears mingle with theirs. All this 
is genuine, vital, human. Not the least so is his shudder 
of indignation in spirit as he beholds the hollow and heart- 
less lamentation of the professional mourners who throno- 
about his friends, and as he sees the hostile glances of other 
Jews who have come from Jerusalem "to console them 
concerning their brother," who are in fact less intent upon 
this errand of mercy than upon plans of hostility toward 
himself. These things make upon us the impression that 
our Lord's human experience was real, genuine, spontane- 
ously responsive to the moods of life around him. 

In one respect, however, Christ's attitude in this emer- 
gency is wholly peculiar. He stands concerning the death 
of Lazarus at such a different point of view from the one 
held by these relatives and friends that, while they are dis- 
turbed and distressed, he is calm with a calmness which 
on the surface seems like indifference. Nor is this entirely 
explained by his knowledge that he will soon call Lazarus 
back to life. The essential relations between life and death 
seem somehow altered in his vision; and when he bids 
Lazarus awake, there is something in his manner which 
impresses us that what was of chief importance to the 
lookers-on was to the One who had brought it all about quite 
incidental and subordinate. 

Are we right in this surmise ? Did Christ have con- 
cerning life some thought so great, so comprehensive, as to 
make even the restoration of a dead man from the grave 
seem to him little and insignificant in comparison? 

The answer is intimated in the narrative. Nearly every 
event recorded in the gospel according to John brings out 
some one idea which is characteristic of the gospel, — an 
idea for which the event, the scene, the conversation, in a 
sense exist as a vehicle. These ideas are transcendental ', 



356 CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. [Fourth Quarter. 

as it were. They do not deal with the facts of common and 
outward experiences, but with realities which lie behind those 
experiences, condition them, and give them their deepest 
value. For an understanding of our Lord's history we place 
chief reliance on the earlier gospels. To gain insight into 
his deeper and subtler teachings as to the meaning of life 
and as to the relations where the divine and the human 
merge and heaven and earth commingle, we turn, not in 
vain, to this Fourth Gospel. 

Following such a clew, where in the narrative before us 
shall we look for the characteristic idea ? The climax of 
action, and to the mourners the chief event of all, is, Christ's 
life-giving word, " Lazarus, come forth." But the climax 
of thought is Christ's saying to Martha, " I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life." By the very singularity of the expres- 
sion we should at once detect it as the characteristic, the 
transcendental idea. " I am the resurrection and the life," 
— we look in vain for any expression in that form outside 
this gospel. Here it recurs frequently : " I am the way, 
the truth, and the life ; " "I am the bread of life, — he that 
cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me 
shall never thirst ; " "I am the vine, ye are the branches ; " 
"I and my Father are one." These are kindred and charac- 
teristic ideas ; and the striking thing about them is that they 
present Christ as embodying and concentrating in himself 
that which he is seeking to impress. He defines life and 
truth, not in the terms of logic or of ordinary experience, 
but in terms of his own personality. He does not say, I 
teach you these ; but he says, I am these. 

It is not, then, difficult to see that the assertion which 
Christ here makes to Martha is the culminating idea of the 
passage : " I am the resurrection and the life : he that be- 
lieveth on me, though he die, yet shall he live ; and whoso- 
ever liveth and believeth on me shall never die." It is far 



Lesson I.] CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. 357 

from being a mere proclamation of his power to raise Laza- 
rus from the tomb, or to prevent other men from dying. 
Cancellation of the fact of physical death is not the chief 
sign or test of Christ's divinity. It is evidently a larger 
and richer thought of life which he is here setting forth, 
to purify and correct the commoner and lower thought. 
H,e asserts the permanence of man's existence here and here- 
after ; but it is a permanence proceeding from unity with 
himself, from the adoption of his conception of life. A man 
having that faith in Christ which brings with it Christ's 
idea of life, even if, like Lazarus, he die, yet shall he live ; 
for he does live, and live indeed. Death has not, cannot, 
overcome him ; he still lives on, spite of death, amid new 
surroundings, in the experience of a larger life ; and whoever 
is alive and enters into that faith and that conception of life 
" shall never die." For such a man life and death hence- 
forth bear changed relations and new meanings. 

As we have said, this is one of the insights which are 
peculiar to the gospel by John. It is not an obvious idea, 
but deep. We are therefore not surprised that Martha, who 
lived wholly in the practical world of outward and sensible 
experience, when asked by Christ in his earnest way, " Be- 
lievest thou this ? " should obtusely reply, " Yea, Lord, I 
have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even 
he that cometh into the world." She believed in Christ, not 
doubting his power; yet her answer shows that she had not 
penetrated to the heart of Christ's meaning. 

Poor, unspiritual, un appreciative, Martha is no worse than 
we. There are many uses made of these and like words 
of Christ which miss his real meanings in them, — meanings 
wherewith they were intended to enrich our lives. These 
very words, " I am the resurrection and the life," we too 
thoughtlessly write over the portals to our cemeteries and 
upon our tombstones. They express our faith in Christ's 



358 CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. [Fourth Quarter. 

power to raise the dead and to open the gates of immortality. 
But this is far from exhausting them. How stupidly we 
turn our back upon them as we come from the cemetery 
portal and go home to our sorrow ! The most needful appli- 
cation of them to ourselves we thus miss. To grasp their 
significance would change for us the whole perspective of life 
and death. 

Notice that it is the life-idea rather than the death-idea 
which is the essential and culminating thought in this de- 
liverance of Christ. He is dealing with the incident of 
death, and therefore speaks of himself as the resurrection ; 
but that thought is absorbed in the deeper and more com- 
prehensive one of life. " I am the life," — that is the great 
and inclusive fact which Christ here affirms about himself. 
lam life ; faith in me makes every possessor of it to live 
" He that liveth and believeth on me shall never die." 

If these spiritual ideas, these transcendental truths, can- 
not enter into our every-day experiences, to charge them 
with a new vitality and to exalt them with a loftier purpose, 
they might as well have been left unspoken. What is our 
existence when unillumined by the light of the Christ-idea 
of life ? What does " life " mean for the multitudes of our 
tramping, toiling humanity ? Is it not in their case, for the 
most part, something fitly described by the words which Christ 
applied to Martha at another time, — " anxious and troubled 
about many things " ? There is a routine and tread-mill 
side to our probation. We have bread to get in the sweat 
of the brow ; work is to be done by hordes of toilers from 
whom all joy of toil has long since departed. One as- 
pect of our experience, the mere struggle for existence, has 
in it a most brutalizing element, which takes the light out 
of men's eyes, the courage out of their hearts, the strength 
out of their arms and brains. This degrading influence by 
no means shows itself alone in those who are defeated and 



Lesson I.] CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. 359 

crushed by the struggle. Success often dehumanizes as 
truly as defeat. Men fatten on their human prey, and are 
hungry still. They are blinded by pleasure, triumph, and 
material success, and do not grow in temperance and strength. 
They are tested by pain, and do not advance in fortitude. 
Common experience has infinite pain mingled in it. 

" Along the wayside where we pass bloom few 
Gay plants of heartsease, more of saddening rue ; 
So life is mingled." 

Everywhere we see men living for themselves, making indi- 
vidual supremacy their law. They seek fame that they may 
be honored, knowledge that they may be learned, dominion 
that they may feel the sense of power, riches that they may 
enjoy luxury. 

If this is even a partly true picture of most human expe- 
rience, what sort of revelation, what added truth, needs to 
come into our conception of life ? Do we most need assur- 
ance of immortality, of our destiny to have a being beyond 
the grave? We need this, to be sure ; for in all our con- 
fusion and distress, some lives are characterized by such 
fidelity, such patience, such sacrifice and devotion, such su- 
periority to all lower aims and pursuits, that it would mock 
one's belief in righteousness to see them cut off in fighting 
for a high standard against a low, only to have the high one 
at last dissolve into nothingness. For all this our need, in 
order to live strongly, is not a revelation of immortality so 
much as it is a revelation about life. What will save us 
is a new sense of life's value, of its quality, of its true rela- 
tions, and of our power to realize these. Assurance of living 
forever, without some light and help upon the problem how 
to make life worth living at all, would mock us. The Sav- 
iour of man's life must be first of all the interpreter of its 
meaning ; he must bring " life and immortality into light." 



360 CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. [Fourth Quarter. 

It is in this way that these exalted truths taught by Jesus, 
which are out of sight to our unspiritual experience, come 
in to renew that experience. " I am the life," says Christ. 
Look at me, come to me ; I will interpret for you the value 
and meaning of this human existence which I share with 
you, and it shall have permanence in worth and meaning 
according as you have faith in me and fellowship with me. 

Nothing can touch our real needs closer than this teach- 
ing. Here is One who comes into our life, sharing our 
earthly lot, entering into all that is human in it, who never- 
theless lives with motives which are divine, a spirit that 
is heavenly. He does not stand apart from its strife, but 
only from its finite aims, its petty and selfish spirit, its 
short-sighted and contradictory motives. His life is not 
less real for this, only it has a reality which conforms to 
infinite and eternal standards, not to those of a day. The 
true worth of life, genuine immortality, according to the 
thought of Christ, grows out of life's qualitative value and 
its divine standards. " If any man believe in me, he 
shall never die." 

Do we find experimental confirmation of this prophetic 
utterance of Christ ? Yes ; from almost every source come 
declarations that life has acquired new value and meaning, 
has come out of strife into peace, out of fighting into frater- 
nity, in proportion as Christ's conception has been realized 
in it. And if we seek testimony to the effect of his doc- 
trine on individuals, what one of us who has felt drawn in 
any degree by the spirit of Christ has not become aware 
of new ideals enrapturing his soul, new motives determining 
his action, a divine unrest spurring him on to more and 
fuller life, and a consciousness of the permanence of that 
life which has fellowship with the spirit and ways of the 
Son of man ? 

All the dissatisfaction which we feel with the un-Christ- 



Lesson I.] CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. 361 

like ways which have become organized into institutions 
bearing Christ's name, is itself the earnest of a power 
which shall turn and overturn, shaking the earth until the 
things which cannot be shaken clearly appear. 

It is worth something to know that the grave is not our 
victor, that we do not lie down and die like brutes. But 
of how much more consequence is it to know that God has 
come to us, bringing the forces, ideals, and motives which 
make heaven what it is, and has revealed these to us in the 
life of his Son ! How much better to know that life be- 
comes really permanent and eternal by being worthful, by 
having in it the power and the love of God, because this is 
eternal life, — to know God, and Jesus Christ whom he has 
sent I 

Christ stands before each of us, and says in spirit as he 
said to Martha : " I am the resurrection and the life : he that 
believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live ; and whoso- 
ever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest 
thou this ? " 

May we not with as earnest a faith as she, and with an 
even larger perception of his meaning, say, Yea, Lord, I 
believe ; help me to live thy life ! 



ILesson II. October 11. 



CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. 

John xii: 20-36. 
By Rev. EDWARD BRAISLIN, D. D., Brook ltn, N. Y. 

r "PHE multitude about our Lord was as yet in ignorance of 
-*- the near approach of his death. All outward signs, 
indeed, pointed to a quite other destiny. The palms and 
hosannas of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the chant- 
ing by the children of familiar messianic psalms in the 
temple court, and the apparently popular acceptance of Jesus 
as king, all contributed to make this the proudest earthly 
hour of the Son of David. The misleading glory of that 
hour was all about him as a delegation of Greeks approached 
his disciples and asked audience of him. The manner of 
the strangers strikes us as having been unusually courteous 
and refined, and Philip, whom they addressed, seems to have 
suspected some extraordinary importance attaching to the 
embassage, for he must needs secure the approval of a fellow- 
apostle before venturing upon an introduction. Andrew and 
he together tell Jesus. 

There is in the whole scene an atmosphere of official dig- 
nity and formality quite unlike the democratic freedom of in- 
tercourse usually marking our Lord's relations with the people. 
He himself is strangely moved. No sooner is that " Sir, we 
would see Jesus," reported to him by Andrew and Philip, 
than he exclaims, " The hour is come;" and again, " Now is my 
soul troubled." That these events are but related parts of 



Lesson II.] CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. 363 

one scene is evident from the assurance of John that the words 
of Jesus were in " answer " to the inquirers. He who knew 
what was in man interpreted the nature of the desire to see 
him, which these wise men from the West had expressed ; 
and in response to their need and level with their capacity, 
began the asked-for disclosure of himself. 

What manner of men were these who could thus by. their 
advent so powerfully affect the calm of our divine Lord, and 
call from him truth so profound and far-reaching ? Much 
conjecture has been expended upon the subject, but nothing 
definite is known touching either their individuality or their 
representative character. It is certain that they were native 
Greeks, and probable that they were not Jewish proselytes. 
Their evident sincerity, courtesy, and reverence indicate in- 
telligence and spiritual penetration. Their coming leads us 
to infer that they had recognized something in Jesus' reputa- 
tion which prepared them for the discovery that here was 
One who was the Master of all their masters, — a greater 
than Homer, Socrates, or Plato. They were of a race dis- 
tinguished above all the peoples of antiquity for intellectual 
and aesthetic culture, — a race mentally honest, alert, accom- 
plished, superbly, even pathetically, human. 

The Greeks, without special divine revelation, — so far as 
we know, — had sought and found much of the knowledge 
which we to-day prize in our systems of art, philosophy, 
even of theology. Greek processes and forms of thought 
have played a vital part in evolving Christian civilization. 
That Jesus is king was written on the cross in Greek, and 
to the Greek language we must still go for the entire story 
of his life and work. These considerations become especially 
interesting when we remember that the visit of the Greek 
delegation of which we are speaking furnishes us with the 
first distinct meeting-place of Greek inquiry and Christian 
truth, — the two factors of the world's noblest progress. 



364 CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. [Fourth Quarter. 

Henceforth it is to be in the union of " both Jew and 
Greek " that Christ is to become " the power of God and 
the wisdom of God." 

Our scripture may then be considered as setting forth the 
disclosure of our Lord to the Greeks, and through them to 
every honest and earnest human soul asking, as they asked, 
to see him with clearer vision than that of the Jew, who 
applauded and then rejected him, or that of the Eoman, who 
acquitted and then crucified him. 

Jesus first, in direct address, discloses the fundamental 
truth of his personal career and his kingdom. Next is re- 
lated an incident which sets before us the divinely human 
Lord even better than the direct address. Then the latter 
is resumed, made more solemn and authoritative by the in- 
terruption, while verses 34-36 reveal the meagre visible re- 
sults which may attend exalted spiritual instruction, under 
even the most divine of teachers. 

In the self-disclosure of his direct address our Lord first 
of all dispels the illusion which his popular reception may 
have occasioned in the minds of the inquirers. The hour 
of his glory has indeed come, but it is a glory unlike that 
of David and Solomon, his human ancestors. It is a glory 
not of this world, and yet in perfect harmony with unsinning 
Nature and the laws which obtain in all earthly life which 
is simply normal. 

His glory is that of the kernel of wheat, which except it 
fall into the ground and die, remains solitary and fruitless, 
but dying, secures its glory of graceful stalk, tender green, 
and abundant harvest. Christ has entered Nature's domain, 
to submit to the laws which are regnant and beneficent there. 
But Nature is symbolic and prophetic ; her laws are meta- 
phors. She fulfils herself as a mute index of things beyond 
her. Natural law penetrates the spiritual world. Nature's 
Lord will fulfil Nature's prophecies, crown her laws. To him 



Lesson II.] CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. 365 

as to her, death is essential to glorification. By death the 
sphere of his activity will be widened, the beauty of his 
character enhanced, and his likeness multiplied among men. 
By his death he secures an expanded horizon, a resistless 
momentum, a limitless companionship. 

So far Christ's parable of the seed. It applies to him, but 
its general application by men needs his special enforcement. 
He knows well that it would be much more easy and agree- 
able to his disciples in all ages to admire him, and applaud 
his personal exemplification of his exquisite parable, than to 
follow his example. Therefore, with solemn insistence he 
declares the principle of life through death to be a fixed 
principle which no career may evade while hoping to share 
in what the Christ should secure beyond. Not only is. the 
Kedeemer's larger life and power secured by his self-immola- 
tion, but largeness of life and power for every man is alone 
so secured. Every disciple is under an awful necessity to 
translate the cross into life. Escape from it is never prom- 
ised ; but escape through it is, thank God, secured, since the 
Christ was more than conqueror. " Whosoever loves his life 
loses it," — it decays, is destroyed. He that hateth selfish- 
ness, — his false life, — shall keep his true life eternally. 

" Life " in this passage is used in two senses, represented 
by two words. If any man will enter the sphere of use- 
fulness, let him follow my example, and he will find me 
there. If any man so serve and follow, " him will my 
Father honor." We have here the strongest possible as- 
severation of the dependence of Christly companionship 
upon Christliness of character and conduct. Only capacity 
and experience furnish an arena in which the word " to- 
gether" has rational meaning. 

Thus with surpassing beauty and brevity does the Jesus 
whom the inquirers had asked to see disclose what is at once 
the profoundest and the simplest, the most natural and the 



366 CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. [Fourth Quarter. 

most mysterious, of all the New Testament teaching. He 
must die. His life, all spiritual life, hangs dependent upon 
that. He declares it as primary knowledge. It is his first 
word to every hungry soul. And while the child can grasp 
it and feel at once its necessity and its beneficence, the phi- 
losopher is but a child in the presence of its awfully glorious 
wisdom. 

Even as Christ spoke of death and of the life which was 
conditioned upon it, his whole aspect suddenly changed. 
The personal nature of his principle seems to have grown 
all at once appallingly real to his human consciousness. It 
was he who was the kernel of wheat, and the hour was at 
hand when he was to pass from the light and air into the 
nameless horror and pain. It was he who was to lose his life, 
that he might keep it for himself and secure it to others. 
We may wonder at this revulsion of feeling, this sudden 
break in an infinite self-command, but it is very human. 
" Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, 
save me from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this 
hour. Father, glorify thy name." 

Everywhere in the suffering life of Jesus of Nazareth the 
sense of trouble instinctively found rest and peace in God. 
No trial ever came to him which did not find his face 
turned upward. Prayer was to him no final resort, but a 
first and sole refuge. It was not the prompting of a sense 
of duty, obeyed with divided attention, but the concentration 
of his soul, as normal and intense as is our instinct of self- 
preservation in mortal peril. When this black cloud swept 
over his soul, its very blackness intensified his feeling of 
dependence ; and while it obscured his mental vision it 
revealed his moral and spiritual oneness with the Father. 

Observe the swift and frank confession, " Now is my soul 
troubled : " the undisguised perplexity, " What shall I say ? " 
the stumbling request, "Father, save me from this hour;" 



Lesson II.] CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. 367 

the instantaneous recovery, " But for this cause came I unto 
this hour ; " the sublime victory, " Father, glorify thy name." 
How unguarded, how free from artificial caution, how utterly 
childlike in its artlessness, is the divine revelation here made 
of the manhood of our great Lord ! It never occurs to him, 
or to John, who makes the record, that so striking an ex- 
hibition of human limitation might awaken theological sus- 
picion as to his deity. He never guards himself, — that 
would be fatal weakness. He simply is ; and what he is is 
given away to the suspicions, the bigotries, the limitations, 
the stupidity, the sinfulness, of a mixed multitude of people 
with as much divine prodigality as his bread is given to the 
thousands or his life to the millions of men. As he did 
not guard himself, so he does not need our guarding; he 
simply needs that we should take him and give him away 
again, preach him as we find him in the word, as trans- 
parently, ingenuously, sincerely, manfully as he preached him- 
self and as his friends reported him. 

The subtle Greek, listening and observing in that crowd 
in the temple area, was prepared for learning, argument, 
subtlety ; but this abandon of an utterly transparent and 
peerless human and divine manhood disarmed, silenced, and 
won him. It had affiliations with his own limitations, 
awakened irresistibly his aspirations, and sped away into 
the heaven of his loftiest dreams, — something tangible, allur- 
ing, prophetic, possibly attainable. 

But this Jesus whom inquirers from the. West would see, 
has swift correspondence with the skies ; and this too they 
are permitted to behold. Physical Nature, which multiplies 
itself in his hands, calms itself beneath his feet, and grows 
luminous about his person, now vibrates with the Father's 
voice in his praise. That voice declares the union in one 
glory of the Father and the Son. It was heard audibly 
above the heads of the multitude. And while it disclosed 



368 CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. [Fourth Quarter. 

still further the regal nature and state of Jesus, it revealed 
the varying degrees of sensitiveness and capacity of those 
who stood about him. All revelation of God is a two-edged 
sword. It opens heaven and makes manifest the glory of 
God, but it uncovers also the littleness of man. The voice 
from the sky disclosed three orders of hearers. Some were 
agnostics: they heard but thunder. Some were spiritual- 
ists: they heard an angel's voice. One at least, and it 
may be others, heard and recognized the voice of God. So 
is it ever ; precisely the same phenomenon is to one man 
purely material, to another vaguely marvellous, to another 
intelligently divine. To the latter class our Lord himself 
belongs. To him physical Nature was the Father's articula- 
tion, exquisitely modulated, clearly intelligible. 

After declaring that the audible voice was not necessary 
to him, but that it came to reveal him more clearly to them, 
our Lord resumes his discourse, which his sudden sense of 
coming pain and the incident it occasioned, had interrupted ; 
and what he said is reported to us in two pregnant sentences. 
With prophetic certainty he speaks of the triumphant results 
of his death as being already accomplished. "Now is the 
crisis of this world; now shall the ruler of this world be 
cast out." In the rabbinical writings "prince,'' or "ruler 
of this world," was a common designation of Satan. He was 
ruler of the Gentiles, as opposed to God, the ruler of the 
Jews. But this distinction, while it may have given cur- 
rency to the phrase, " Prince of this world," was in our Lord's 
use of it lost in that larger distinction between those who 
submit to him and those who continue under the sway of 
evil. The prince of evil, the adversary of souls, who in 
fastening the Lord of Life to the cross fancied his ultimate 
victory secured, is in the very moment of his triumph for- 
ever overthrown by that cross itself. God makes the wrath 
of man and of devils to praise him. Satan's design was that 



Lesson II.] CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. 369 

the cross should destroy the Christ and blot out forever 
man's hope of heaven ; when, lo ! it becomes instead the 
radiant open gateway thither. The cross forever dethrones 
the power which erected it. 

But the living Christ is the power in the cross. In itself 
it is nothing. " /, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto me." That mysterious magnetism felt by all 
reverent souls in the gospels which tell of his work and 
sacrifice ; that response which the conscience unfailingly 
makes to his claim of kingship ; that peace which invariably 
follows obedience to his will, — all are confirmations and illus- 
trations of what he meant by this prophecy of pre-eminence 
which should be conditioned upon his death and resurrec- 
tion. I say death and resurrection, for the lifting up from 
the earth involves the ascension from the grave and into the 
skies. The throne whence he draws, is at the right hand of 
God the Father ; the power with which he draws, has been 
given him by his resurrection from the dead. " For if, while 
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the 
death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be 
saved by his life." 

In this imperfect glance at the passage so crowded with 
meaning, we have simply tried to see Jesus in the light in 
which he obviously intended the Greek inquirers to behold 
him. As the discourse closed, all who had been attentive 
saw what no one of them had seen before in him, — new grace 
and glory ; a grace and glory not of this world. It is diffi- 
cult for us to put ourselves in their place, but impossible 
for us to review the scene without a new thrill of joy in 
having ever been introduced to him ourselves, and in having 
the blessed security of his living hold upon us, mightier far 
than that attraction which holds the stars in their courses. 

And if, after we have attempted to teach others, we find that 
we have ranged above the intelligence or failed to pierce the 
24 



370 CHRIST FORETELLING HIS DEATH. [Fourth Quarter. 

indifference of our hearers, we shall but repeat something of 
that experience of the Lord when, after disclosing his inmost 
heart to these strangers and the multitude, he is met by the 
very question which he has been trying to answer. " Who 
is this Son of Man ?" is the only response he hears, to re- 
ward him for that lesson. But other days are coming ; no 
spoken truth can die. Multitudes will read of that hour's 
work, and multitudes will see him in it as the Christ, the 
Saviour of the world. " Walk while ye have the light," 
"believe in the light," is his significant if not sorrowful 
answer to the last question. Bouse ye to the light which 
has penetrated your darkened understanding; follow the 
gleam ; let it grow. " Then lie departed, and did hide him- 
self from them." 



JUsson in. October 18. 



WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. 

John xiii: 1-17. 
By Rev. LEMUEL C. BARNES, Newton Centre, Mass. 

ACCUEATELY to know motives is the most spiritual of 
knowledge ; to act on right motives the highest grace. 
To understand the motives of Jesus Christ and to be actur 
ated by them is eternal life. The scripture for to-day ought 
to help us to " grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ," because more than most passages 
it places before us the springs of his conduct. John, the 
disciple of deepest sympathetic insight into Christ's nature, 

— John, ripened by sixty years of communion with Christ, 

— John, of all inspired men, can best make known to us the 
motives from which Christ acted. Six of these are men- 
tioned, each immeasurably powerful. 

The only certain thing in the present life is that it has an 
end. The sublime possibilities of a human life on earth 
must all be realized before that certain end. A perception 
of the fact that the end is swiftly approaching ought to con- 
dense one's energies. Such had " Jesus, knowing that his 
hour was come that he should depart out of this world." 

Love is that which makes life worth living. Not only is 
love throned in heaven, love is the main delight of home 
on earth. Love in the intimate circles of life, and love in 
its wider spheres, is the moving force of the best there is in 



372 WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. [Fourth Quarter. 

human conduct. The relation of heart to heart is that 
which stirs being to its depths. Jesus was under the mighty 
pressure of this thought. " Having loved his own who were 
in the world, he loved them unto the end," or " to the utter- 
most." Whether " his own " included all them also that 
believed on him or not, it certainly included his mother and 
his immediate disciples. Great and warm human love was at 
this moment in his heart. 

A soul with a fine sense of honor is intensely aroused by 
the discovery of treachery. A noble nature is set on edge at 
the sight of meanness. Eighteousness exerts itself to over- 
come unrighteousness. The sin of the world has called into 
activity the best energies of God and of good men. Chivalry 
springs to action in the presence of perfidy. Men can 
sometimes face death unmoved, or be under the sway of 
strong love without excitement. But where is the man who 
can look on the black-hearted treachery of a friend without 
being stirred to the depths ? Jesus was under the keen spur 
of this emotion too, " the devil having already put into the 
heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him." 

The sense of power impels to action. The mettlesome 
horse must move. The child full of vitality hops and skips 
along with double the necessary steps. The methodical 
instinct, whether acting on the affairs of a nation or on the 
affairs of a kitchen table, must put things in order. Execu- 
tive power will almost spontaneously bring things to pass. 
The sense of energy is the incitement to activity. What if 
one had the consciousness of unlimited energy ! This had 
" Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into 
his hands." 

" Blood will tell." It was a bugle-call to the children of 
Israel to hear repeated the names of their fathers, " Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob." Men of high lineage feel called upon to 
do deeds worthy of their ancestry, as well as of themselves. 



Lesson III.] WASHING THE DISCIPLES' EEET. 373 

Many heroic acts have been performed under that prompt- 
ing. In a democratic, Christian age, any man may forget the 
intermediate links, and remembering that he is a child of 
God, rise to a godlike course of conduct. One Son of Man 
had, beyond all others, the consciousness of being the Son of 
God. He was now under the exalting and exhilarating in- 
fluence of that consciousness, " knowing that he came forth 
from God." 

There is one spring of action which lies all beyond the 
realm of sense. Even the ruder ages of mankind felt its force 
tugging at their hearts. They groped eagerly, if haply they 
might find its fastenings and trust themselves securely to its 
mighty uplift. It was brought to light by Jesus Christ. 
Immortality, not vaguely felt, guessed at, hoped for, but im- 
mortality revealed, demonstrated, assured, is a consummate 
motive, which in an incomparable way lets the pent-up 
possibilities of the soul break forth in deeds of power. It is 
worth while to move when every step is not toward an 
eternal grave, but toward eternal life. This assurance has 
" Jesus, knowing that he goeth unto God." 

Here was a grand combination of spurs to action : a vivid 
appreciation of the shortness of this life, and at the same 
time of the endless life with God beyond; on the one hand 
a feeling of the most tenacious human love, and on the other 
one of recoil from the most demoniacal human treachery ; the 
stirring consciousness of unlimited power, along with the 
clear perception that this power is of divine origin. The 
will can have no stronger incitements than these : death, 
love, horror of evil, consciousness of power, certainty of 
origin in God and of eternal life with God. Each one of 
them by itself has often been sufficient to awaken men to 
loftiest endeavor. But John tells us that these considera- 
tions were all marshalled and concentrated at once in the 
mind of Jesus. 



374 WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. [Fourth Quarter. 

On our dull souls great motives are often ineffective ; 
but the spirit of Christ answered with electric quickness 
to every such incentive. From him, at a moment when he 
is under the impulse of many transcendent impulses com- 
bined, we can be sure of some godlike act. The creation 
of a new sun in the heavens would be no worthy result 
of such a preparation. We expect something morally much 
greater than that. 

" He took a towel, and girded himself. Then he poureth 
water into the bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and 
to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded." 

It all came to this. We saw him girded in spirit for the 
sublimest deed, and he simply girded himself for the act of 
a domestic slave. There was no servant in that company 
to do the necessary drudgery. The sandal-soled feet were 
dusty with travel, and must be cleansed before the supper. 
The " disciples " were still hot with their recent dispute 
over the question who should be greatest. At that instant 
not one of them was willing to do for the rest the neces- 
sary menial duty, — very much such a service as blacking 
boots would be now ; yet Jesus did it spontaneously. 

The disciples failed because under the sway of low ideas 
as to personal dignity. The bulk of mankind's work is 
composed of commonplace deeds, naturally looked upon as 
drudgery. Jesus brings to the tasks of humanity motives 
which are sublime. Wherever the impulses of heaven are 
introduced into the duties of earth, the kingdom of heaven 
has come. That was the very thing which the disciples 
were all the time failing to see. How they failed to see 
it in this case is recorded next. 

Peter says, " Lord, is not this too servile an act for 
thee to perform on me ? " Christ replies, " There is more 
in it than you see at first glance, Peter." " Lord, it will 
never, never do," insists Peter. " Eeciprocating in such an 



Lesson III.] WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. 375 

act as this, is the only way to participate in my kingdom," 
is Christ's response. "If there is any such magic efficacy as 
that in it, perform the ceremony on my hands and my head 
as well," Peter stupidly goes on. But Christ rejoins, " It 
is not a magical ceremony ; it has no occult ritual efficacy ; 
it is merely a little needful service. Having bathed this 
morning, the feet are the only part of the body soiled on 
the way here, so as to need washing now." 

That is, — though not only Peter at this time, but all the 
apostles, as long as Christ lived on earth, failed to see it, 
— the kingdom of God is nothing more than the living of 
every-day life in a godly way. Peter's mistake is that of the 
ages. The kingdom of heaven is too near to be seen while 
men are straining their eyes for some far distant object. 

Men have gone thousands of miles on pilgrimages, or hid- 
den themselves in mountain grottos or in monastery cells ; 
but the kingdom of heaven consists not in asceticism. 
Many, with closed outward eyes, have in dreamy introspec- 
tion soared away into the clouds of contemplation ; but the 
kingdom of God lies not in mysticism. Others have heated 
themselves to an abnormal pitch of feeling ; but the kingdom 
of heaven is not emotion. 

These far-fetched, conventional kingdoms are kingdoms of 
darkness and unreality. The real kingdom of God consists 
in doing all sorts of homely and necessary deeds in a godly 
or godlike way ; that is, in the way Christ did them. The 
true teachers of religion who have helped men to see this 
heavenly realm have not done it with telescopes for dis- 
tant vision ; they have removed eye-scales, and rendered the 
retinas of men's eyes sensitive for the spiritual definition 
of that which is near to us all. 

Poets, novelists, and other artists unveil the heavenly 
beauties of the natural world. They hold up crystal prisms 
which unravel for us the hues of the rainbow. So in the 



376 WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. [Fourth Quarter. 

moral world, genuine preachers and prophets of God reveal 
to us the eternal significance of every-day life. While the 
children of Israel were cultivating Assyrian star worship and 
other idolatries, the burden of the prophets was concerning 
the right treatment of slaves, widows, and neighbors, and the 
use of exact standards in trade, as God had commanded. 
Christ is the world's great seer, God's prophet of the king- 
dom of heaven at hand. The Sermon on the Mount is not 
a sermon in the clouds. It is as the dew of Hermon on the 
parched fields of every-day duty. A collection of Christ's 
parables might well be entitled " Spiritual Law in the Natu- 
ral World." His whole life incarnates that idea. In the 
scene before us he does this most vividly. Whatever our 
opinions, our feelings, our experiences, if we fail to accept 
this element of Christ's doctrine, he says to each of us, 
"Thou hast no part with me." The necessity of participa- 
tion with him in this true practice of religion, is the thought 
on which the remainder of the lesson insists. 

Christ intends to be closely followed in this mode of life. 
" For I have given you an example, that ye also should do 
as I have done to you." His act is to be imitated, not " spir- 
itualized." When Scripture is disagreeably exacting in its 
practical requirements, we have a way of turning it into 
allegory, and so thrusting it out of the realm of the will 
into that of the imagination. We delude ourselves with 
this pious trick by sanctimoniously calling the process "spir- 
itualizing" It is in fact vaporizing. When a teaching 
comes down weightily on the conscience, it is a great relief 
if we can transmute it from the solid into the volatile form. 
When it is once evaporated, we see no end of beauty in the 
clouds which result. 

In the ancient Orient feet-washing was as much a Chris- 
tian duty as hospitality is ever, where. The early Chris- 
tians so understood it. Thirty years after the event before 



Lesson III.] WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. 377 

us, Paul instructed Timothy as to the basis of a deaconess's 
certificate of character in the church : " If she hath brought 
up children, if she hath used hospitality to strangers, if she 
hath washed the saints' feet, if she hath relieved the afflicted, 
if she hath diligently followed every good work." There is 
no metaphor in any of those phrases. 

Neither is the act to be ceremonialized, made into a piece 
of ritual. This appears to have been the conclusion to which 
Peter jumped when the Lord insisted on the essential im- 
portance of what he had just done. That would be almost 
as easy a release from the disagreeable duty it imposed as 
the so-called " spiritualizing " process. The assumed suc- 
cessor of Peter has availed himself of it. The Pope once 
a year goes through the ceremony of washing the feet of 
twelve paupers, picked out for the purpose. But when did 
the Pope ever wash the feet of any one else, say an em- 
peror ? To others also the use of ritual at appointed times 
is an easy and common mode of absolving conscience from 
the unpleasant duties of every-day life. Christ meant to 
be taken literally. During the entire two generations after 
his death, while the New Testament was assuming the writ- 
ten form, there is no evidence that any one misunderstood 
him by supposing that his meaning was either figurative or 
ritual. 

The act is also not to be mimicked. For men to take off 
boots and socks to wash one another's feet which do not need 
it, might be aping Christ, but would not be rendering a ser- 
vice ; it would not be imitating him. ' : I have given you an 
example," he says. The arithmetic gives " examples for prac- 
tice." For instance, " What will 675 pounds of cheese cost, 
at 13 cents a pound ? " Probably not one of all the hundred 
thousand boys who work out that problem will ever have to 
buy or sell exactly 675 pounds of cheese at exactly 13 cents 
a pound ; but every boy who thoroughly grasps that " exam- 



378 WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. [Fourth Quarter. 

pie " can multiply any number of pounds of cheese or any- 
thing else by any number of cents. The faculty of multi- 
plication is his, because in every multiplication he imitates 
the processes of the original example. The example of Christ 
is not to be spiritualized, or ceremonialized, or mimicked ; 
it is to be imitated. 

Are we not apt to feel that the imitation of Christ is 
almost impossible? Does not his example often appear to 
us so high and difficult as to be practically beyond our 
reach ? Is it not common to say, It is all well in theory, 
but it cannot be carried out in business ; it is very beauti- 
ful, but it cannot be practised in society ? The example 
of Christ is indeed difficult, there is no denying that. It 
is more difficult than some think, who see only the surface 
of Christ's character, and lightly declare that they believe 
in him as an example. To imitate Christ is the most 
difficult thing which men can do. 

But the event which we are considering helps us by 
showing plainly just where the difficulty lies. We often 
fail in life because we have not learned to apply our ener- 
gies at the proper point. While we vainly wrestle with 
unimportant elements of difficulty, the real foe, with whom 
we have not grappled, holds the ground. 

We complain of Christ's example as too exalted. Nay, 
the characteristic act which he sets before us here shows 
that the true difficulty of it is not its loftiness, but its low- 
liness. Washing feet, blacking boots, — it is the thousand 
and one deeds of piety like these which, being required of 
us, stagger our faith. The extreme simplicity of Christ's 
example bewilders us. We look for something complicated 
in it, and gird ourselves for a race through a labyrinth. 
Our trouble in following Christ is not that the path is too 
intricate, but that it is too straight. The parables of Christ 
represent the kingdom of heaven as coming gradually. 



Lesson III.] WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. 379 

The more it prevails, the more we find religion to prevail 
in the common places of life. Christ cannot be followed 
on stilts. How deceived are the multitudes who think of 
being religious as a balancing in some constrained way 
above the earth ! 

The real difficulty which we encounter in living up to 
Christ's example, roots itself not in our capacity but in 
our wills. The things required of us, instead of being those 
which we cannot do, are the only things and only the 
things, which we certainly can do. The question is, Are 
we willing to humble ourselves with him ? " Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord; 
neither one that is sent greater than he that sent him." 
"Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for so 
I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your 
feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet." "If ye 
know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 



ILcsson IV. October 25. 



CHRIST COMFORTING HIS DISCIPLES. 

John xiv: 1-3, 15-27. 
By Rev. President ALBION W. SMALL, Ph.D., Wateryille, Me. 

r T^HE question which Judas asked was a natural one. It 
-*- has been repeated by both sceptics and believers in 
every generation since. It deserves a frank reply. How 
can God make known himself and his ways to one man, and 
not to another ? The Bible asserts repeatedly that he does 
so. " No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to 
whom the Son shall reveal him." " No man cometh unto the 
Father but by me." "No man hath seen God at anytime; 
the only-begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, 
he hath declared him." " He that loveth me shall be loved 
of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself 
to him," — implying, of course, that this manifestation is 
exceptional, or at least not universal. 

In order to understand the Master's reply, it is necessary 
to analyze that which the question attempted to investigate. 
Perhaps we should use a word which Judas, in asking it, was 
not sufficiently intelligent to choose. Let us say, " How 
may the Lord disclose or reveal himself to his disciples, and 
not to others ? " 

Disclosure, or revelation, is at least a double process. It 
consists in the presentation of an object of knowledge, and 
a mental reception of what is presented ; a clear manifesta- 



Lesson IV.] CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. 381 

tion, and an object of this who is capable of apprehending it. 
Again, different objects of knowledge manifest or disclose 
themselves through diverse channels of apprehension. There 
is demonstration through the senses, as when we report, upon 
the authority of the sense of touch, that an object is hard, 
soft, smooth, or rough. There is also the declaration of the 
reason, as when we candidly consider the professions of a 
political party and decide upon their merits. And there is 
the revelation of the affections, as when we discern the bit- 
terness of ingratitude or the sweetness of fidelity. Each 
kind of truth has its own channel and method of getting 
at the mind. 

Moreover, different truths or objects manifest themselves 
in various degrees, according to the capacity of the recipient. 
Not long ago I visited one of my colleagues in his mineralo- 
gical cabinet. Opening one of the drawers, I took in my 
hands two specimens, with the remark, " These are dupli- 
cates." " Oh, no," was the reply, " they are quite different 
minerals." "How do you know that?" I said; "they look 
just alike." " No," was his response, " they look extremely 
unlike." To my sight the specimens were identical. To his 
critical vision, although casting the same rays of light upon 
his eye as upon mine, and presenting the same surface, they 
made an incomparably more definite revelation. 

There are said to be men employed in the wine vaults con- 
nected with the London docks who are able by taste not only 
to distinguish between a sherry, a claret, and a port, but 
also to tell the district in which a given wine was produced. 
It is even asserted that in many cases they can .name the 
year of the vintage. 

When Grant was before Corinth, anxious to know whether 
the Confederates within proposed a long resistance, railroad 
experts in his army, placing their ears to the rails running 
into the city, informed the general not only that trains were 



382 CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

entering and leaving the city, but that the trains from the 
city were loaded, while those entering it were empty ; thus 
assuring him that the besieged were trying to get away. 

To each of us the share of revelation which his capacities 
can apprehend. Truth belonging to the sphere of one form 
of demonstration cannot be mediated by all, perhaps not by 
any, of the other forms. If your sense of sight is undevel- 
oped, you do not demand that taste be convinced before 
you believe - that which can only be known through the 
eye. You do not demand of your child an algebraic demon- 
stration before you believe in its love. And if your affections 
are sensitive while yonr reason is slow, you do not expect 
arithmetic to enlist your affections before you will believe 
in the multiplication-table. 

Men say, "Let us understand these so-called spiritual 
truths; let them be explained, demonstrated. Let us be 
convinced." The demand is fair ; but the explanation, the 
demonstration, the conviction, must be to a capacity appro- 
priate to this special kind of truth. These alleged truths 
are in the Bible. " We can read or hear it as well as others," 
opponents declare. " Its statements address mental capaci- 
ties as active in us as in the persons who receive them. 
How, then, can revelation come to them rather than to us?" 
But assuredly words may be heard without conveying any 
meaning to the mind. Eevelation is not complete without a 
reception and an understanding of the matter presented. 

A truth has not been revealed to us unless we have expe- 
rienced the emotions which it is fitted to arouse. Any of us 
may read accounts of what is seen by the astronomers who 
are using the Lick telescope, but only they who have gazed 
through that splendid glass, to resolve nebulas into clusters of 
hitherto undistinguished worlds, have known experimentally, 
have personally received the revelation of these hitherto 
unknown worlds. To one who does not possess it already, 



Lesson IV.J CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. 383 

words cannot convey experimental knowledge. They simply 
name our ideas. Any new knowledge which they seem to 
give is simply a re-arrangement of ideas previously in the 
mind. Looking into the kaleidoscope, you see gaudy colors. 
Turn the kaleidoscope : something new has apparently 
entered it. In fact the same light is there as before, so 
are the same bright pieces of glass ; but they now have a 
different arrangement, and therefore reflect and transmit the 
light in a different way. Words are simply the power to 
turn the kaleidoscope of our experiences. If we lack the 
experiences, words cannot give them. For this reason, in 
part, no one under forty-five years of age can intelligently 
read Shakspeare. 

All you who are parents had many times heard the 
words describing parental feelings before you yourselves be- 
came parents. You thought you knew their meaning; but 
in fact it was a totally new experience when your first help- 
less child was placed in your arms. All the words with which 
you could describe your emotions had been in your vocabu- 
lary before, but the experience filled them with a meaning 
undreamed of till then. In like manner, some of us often 
speak of " resignation to the divine will." We perhaps talk 
very wisely about it. Speech is not seldom the easiest for us 
when it concerns things of which we know the least. But 
we may discourse with great fluency upon a thought of this 
character, knowing as little about it in reality as we do of 
the sensations of the martyr burning at the stake. 

Let us seek to apply all this to the Master's words. The 
Lord's manifestation becomes revelation to some and not to 
others, not because of differences in God, or in his manifesta- 
tions, but because of differences in men. God is all about 
us and within. He is all the time manifesting himself. To 
expect that the result shall be to all of us a revelation, it is 
necessary to assure ourselves that we have that spiritual sense 



384 CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

to which the Lord alluded in his reply to Judas. There must 
be not only an exhibition of the divine self, there must also be 
the human capability of apprehending this. " Jesus answered 
and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words ; 
and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, 
and make our abode with him." The heart is not the sensi- 
tive plate upon which the manifestations of the Father can 
become the visible image, until it is prepared by the chem- 
istry of love. With such preparation, the divine manifes- 
tation meets a human capacity to receive, and revelation is 
complete. 

You read in the Bible a passage as familiar to you as the 
alphabet. Hitherto it has seemed to contain very little 
meaning, and certainly has been no mediator between you 
and God. Now, however, it scintillates with new meaning, 
and seems weighty with unsuspected value. The explana- 
tion doubtless is that since you last read it indifferently, you 
have encountered vicissitudes involving the same spiritual 
realities which the words set forth, and forcing you to exer- 
cise a sympathy with your God which you had never before 
developed. The formula has become a truth, and the truth 
has realized itself as a divine revelation. 

Every high-school scholar is familiar with the experiment 
by which the agency of the air in the phenomena of sound 
is proved. A silver bell is suspended upon a spiral spring 
in a glass globe. The bell is kept in vibration, and its sound 
is at first clearly heard. But now an air-pump is set in mo- 
tion beneath the globe. The impact of the bell's tiny tongue 
upon its sides goes on as before, yet as the air is exhausted 
the sound grows fainter and fainter, and at last completely 
dies away. The ocular manifestations are exactly as before, 
but the receptive medium of the air, without which sound 
cannot exist, is gone. In the Master's explanation, love is 
that medium, that condition of the heart, within which alone 



Lksson IV.] CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. 385 

the manifestations of the divine presence and of divine truth 
can transmute themselves into revelation. 

The mysticism of this chapter is transcendent realism. 
The writer had seen the Lord in the body. His ear had 
felt the impact of the very sound-waves set in motion by the 
Master's voice. His hand had often pressed the Saviour's. 
The Lord and the disciple had clasped each other in fervent 
fraternal embrace. But in spite of all this, I cannot read the 
fourteenth and sixteenth chapters of John without claiming 
the prerogative of spiritual knowledge as profound and un- 
impeachable as that vouchsafed to the companions of the 
Son of God while he was in the flesh. 

There is a touch more delicate than touch, a vision more 
penetrating than vision, a hearing more acute than hearing. 
Jesus Christ was not a physical but a spiritual revelation. 
The physical senses of hundreds of men came into relation 
with the manifestations of Christ's physical existence, but, 
for lack of that "eighth sense," of love, discovered in him 
no divinity. 

Jesus Christ presents a body of spiritual facts adapted to 
human apprehension. He is not spiritual fact made dis- 
cernible by physical faculty. It was not the eye of those 
disciples that saw God in that flesh. It was not their ear 
that heard God in that voice. God, by his Spirit, revealed 
to their loving hearts all the spiritual truth that they ever 
gained. 

You have surely wondered sometimes, as you have read 
the gospels, at the invincible obtusenesss of Christ's own 
disciples. They saw the human form, but it was phenome- 
nally hard for them to see the divine truth and the divine 
spirit within the form. Jesus appeared in an age when 
the extraordinary was more expected than the ordinary, 
when the supernatural was more easily accepted than the 
natural ; yet even his immediate disciples not only wrestled 



386 CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

in vain with spiritual conceptions as familiar to us as sun- 
light, but when they did achieve a spiritual discovery, it 
was by the same means which we have to use, not by any 
divination of the senses. 

It is fortunate for our ease of spiritual apprehension that 
Jesus is nineteen centuries removed from the scrutiny of 
our senses. To the loving heart his words are to-day 
more resonant with divine revelation than if we heard his 
voice. His presence is more august with divinity than if 
we confronted his body. His works manifest the power of 
the Holy Spirit more convincingly than if they were cross- 
examined by our weights, measures, and crucibles. In 
divine telegraphy physical contact only insulates the spirit, 
while time and distance cannot obstruct the transmission 
of the message. Our spirits are not in circuit with the 
divine current unless we discern in the manifestations which 
Christ's words and work contain, the divine light, the divine 
wisdom, the divine gentleness, the divine fatherliness, the 
divine love. 

I once met face to face in personal intercourse one of 
those masters whose bodies the tomb has claimed for more 
than four hundred years. I had been preparing by study, 
by the guidance of eminent men, by observation in various 
cities and numerous galleries, for exactly such an event. I 
had at length reached Borne, the home of Christian art. 
I was anxious to know if art was actually a language which 
I could translate. I had taken other people's hearsay and 
opinion and judgment long enough. I started out to see 
for myself whether I could find any one work of art 
that, without introduction or recommendation, would speak 
to me with power. I wandered into the Vatican, I roamed 
through the halls of statuary, and then among the paintings. 
Presently I entered a room in which were three large pieces 
of canvas. At two of these I cast a hurried "lance, but 



Lesson IV] CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. 387 

something in the central canvas fixed my attention. It was 
a picture of the Transfiguration. It was the first painting of 
which I could be sure that the work itself, and not its repu- 
tation, influenced me. Dozens of tourists entered the room, 
talked, criticised, made .entries in note-books, and passed on, 
while I was detained by an invisible power. For an hour 
I was learning from that painter the glories of the Transfig- 
uration Mount. All else in the picture was lifeless ; but the 
face of the Christ, shining as the sun, radiant with the 
nearly completed triumph of a finished redemption, resplen- 
dent with " beatitude past utterance," profoundly moved 
me. The tears started unbidden ; the heart beat faster. 
The same awe seemed to bow me which prostrated the wit- 
nessing disciples. 

Then I turned away to learn who it was that had so 
moved my heart. I found that I had been in converse 
with Eaphael. I had met him in the midst of his last 
earthly work, while he was hastening to leave his su- 
preme thought with the world before death overtook him. 
With his vision of the transfigured Christ he had taught 
me for an hour as eloquently as he had ever thrilled disci- 
ples who knew him in the body. 

Shall I ever again go to another's opinion, or to a printed 
book, or to an aesthetic dogma, to learn whether Raphael is 
a power, whether Raphael is great, whether Raphael is a 
master ? I know it for myself ; I have seen it and felt it. 
He grasped me, lifted me, swayed me. 

The whole life of Christ, as written in the Scriptures, is 
the Holy Spirit's canvas. If we go to it sympathetically, the 
Spirit of God will glorify himself in us. He will cause us 
to see and feel and know the facts of spiritual life. It is 
our right to have just as authentic evidence that the grace 
of God changes the heart, as stands in the records of the 
apostles. It is given us to have a spiritual insight for 



388 CHRIST COMFORTING DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

ourselves, and to be able to testify, not that there is an old 
chronicle which reports that a Pharisee of Tarsus was spir- 
itually blind and somehow gained spiritual eyesight, but to 
testify that we were blind, yet now see. It is our privilege 
to know that the spirit of Christ is . the vital power of our 
spiritual nature, and from immediate knowledge to testify 
of its operation. There is no necessity laid upon us to be 
satisfied with repeating what Christ has said will prove 
true. It is ours to experience the truth and to preach 
Christ from personal verification. Then we may rightfully 
assert with John in his years of ripe Christian experience, 
" that which we have heard, that which we have seen with 
our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands handled con- 
cerning the "Word of life, . . . declare we." 



ile00on V. jpotoentber 1. 



CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. 

John xo: 1-16. 
By Rev. C. C. BROWN, Sumter, S. C 

THIS was the last of our Lord's parables. Whether he 
delivered it on the way to Olivet, whose vineyards 
that night were lighted with watchfires, or standing near the 
temple gate, which was decorated with a golden vine, or in 
the guest-chamber, whither a vine may have crept through 
the window, are questions that cannot be settled, and the 
wisest opinions upon them are but guesses. 

The parable is big with meaning, and may be used to 
illustrate a good many things which it was not designed to 
teach. It contains three great and essential ideas, which we 
may condense as follows : Incorporated into Christ ; abiding 
in Christ; bearing fruit in Christ. Let us consider these 
thoughts in their order. 

1. Christians are represented as incorporated into Christ 
and made a part of him. He is the vine, the stock and 
stem, and they are the branches. Thus are they of the same 
body, and the Christian draws his life from Christ. Apart 
from him, severed from him, even strength is weakness. 
Mark you, he did not say, Apart from my church, or Apart 
from my doctrines, but, Apart from me. There is a union 
that is closer than any that comes through simple adherence 
to church or creed. It is to this that our Lord refers ; it 
is this, too, about which so many fatal mistakes are made. 



390 CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. [Fourth Quarter. 

The Christian and the Christ are one, just as the vine 
and its branches are one. It is painful to know that 
there are so many teachers and people — yea, whole de- 
nominations — who have utterly failed to lay hold of this 
fundamental truth, and who teach a union with Christ that 
is purely artificial and unreal, — a union resulting from rite 
and ritual, from some priestly touch or superstitious manipu- 
lation. The real power of Christ will never flow through 
his people to bless the world until all that are named as his 
shall draw their life from him directly and immediately. 
So-called spiritual energy that has its origin elsewhere than 
in him is only like the moving of an electrified corpse, 
or the ambling of a mechauical hobby-horse. If any man 
would know the power of Christ over him, he must feel the 
flow of the life of Christ in him. There is now no spiritual 
Israel except the human beings who grow out of Christ as 
the branch out of the vine. These, since the Jews have been 
cut off, or, as Paul puts it, have fallen off by unbelief, 
constitute God's spiritual children ; and there are no others, 
except in the sense that God is the willing Father of all 
whom he creates and preserves. 

The connection is neither nominal nor artificial, it is a 
living union. The life of our Lord is imparted to us every 
day. Because he lives, we are to live also. The life that 
he imparts is not circumscribed and limited by the narrow 
boundaries of time, but takes hold upon the everlasting. If 
the world objects, and tells us that such a doctrine — a doc- 
trine linking his life with ours, and ours with his — is dis- 
honoring to him, we can reply, " Jesus knew the faults of 
his disciples before he called them, and told them that their 
life was a part of his." Verily it was true in every sense, 
" Ye did not choose me, but I chose you." He saw their 
ignorance and slowness of heart, the narrowness and, often, 
the un worthiness of their motives; and in the face of all 



Lesssom V.] CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. 391 

this he declared that they were members of him, branches of 
the Vine of God. Nor does he know less of those whom 
he chooses in this day and time, who are made partakers 
of his life. 

2. Christians must abide in Christ. 

In the fourth verse of this chapter we have an earnest 
exhortation, a plea, an entreaty, — " Abide in me." As your 
life is in me, so let your living be. In verse 9 this exhorta- 
tion is intensified, " Abide ye in my love." This is not now 
a call to service, but to friendship and affection. He means 
to say, " Love me, and let me love you. I seek only your 
peace and your good." What infinite condescension ; how 
great a part of his life his disciples must have been; how 
much of his life they now are ! 

Then follows a wholesome warning, " If a man abide not 
in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered." The 
severed branch not only dies but is removed ; and the 
churches of Christ must learn the lesson that is here 
taught. As dead branches disfigure the vine, so do dead 
branches disfigure Christ and his Church. It is better for 
a bramble to be in the wilderness than in the orchard, for a 
weed to be in the forest than in the field. If a man will 
not abide in Christ, and so withers away, it is better for 
him, for the Church, and for the world, that he be cast forth. 
To number him among God's people, and assign him a place 
of honor in the Church, where every place is honorable and 
fit for kings and princes, is only openly to oppose the scrip- 
ture and to do high-handed violence to the commandments 
of God. 

Next is added a sure promise : " If ye abide in me, and my 
words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be 
done unto you." This is the secret key that unlocks the 
gates of prayer, admitting one to the very feet of God. We 
are not given a long problem to solve, or a mystical enigma 



392 CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. [Fourth Quarter. 

to be guessed at, but are told, in simplest utterance and in 
surest promise, how to win God's audience and his favor. 
The whole world is full of beggars, and all the air is heavy 
with the cries of them who seem to call on God in vain. 
They have but to return to the first principles of spiritual 
life, and learn from Jesus this simple lesson, — a lesson that 
eager hearts would so easily learn, — " Abide in me, and let 
my words abide in you ; so shall the heavens be opened to 
you, and all the skies be thronged with answered prayers." 

After this comes a rule that is both an argument and an 
exhortation, " If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide 
in my love." 

This is a summing up of the lessons in the parable. By 
keeping our Lord's commandments we shall know the joy of 
abiding in his love. The union between us can never be 
dissolved so long as we are faithful in this one thing. No 
man ever withered and fell off from Christ while his heart 
earnestly sought to do Christ's will. 

But some one may say, " All this about abiding in Christ 
is a far-away, unreal notion ; it belongs to the mystic and the 
vain dreamer." But behold, there is given in these words a 
simple rule which will verify itself. To abide in Christ's 
commandments is to abide in his love. The love of the 
heart which leads to obedience, is the sure door to the love of 
Christ which is the reward of obedience. " Yea," says he, 
" I have verified the rule I give you ; for I have kept my 
Father's commandments, and I abide in his love." 

Further still, " By doing my commandments, ye shall 
prove your friendship for me." And this is the proof which 
a waiting world demands, — not loud talking and mighty 
display, but a quiet doing of the will of Jesus. This speaks 
louder than any other utterance, and men discover in this 
way sooner than in any other that we came from Christ 
as Christ came from God. 



Lesson V] CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. 393 

3. We are to bear fruit in Christ. 

A vine is valuable only for its fruit, the wood being of but 
little use. 

The essential glory of the human Christ was not in his 
poor mortal body, but in his fruitfulness. The law that 
he complied with, he would bind also upon us. 

If we bear much fruit, we shall glorify God and prove our 
discipleship. In the fruitfulness of the vine is the glory of 
the husbandman, and in the fruitfulness of the branch is the 
believer's reward ; for as faith leads to faith, and love to love, 
and light to light, so discipleship leads to discipleship. And 
true discipleship, says Bengel, is the basis and foundation of 
Christianity. 

" On earth the vine reveals itself in the branches, and is 
also concealed in them." It effects nothing but by the 
branches, and if the churches grow weary of the never- 
ending calls, and complain that the progress of spiritual life 
and truth is slow among men, we can find the reason and 
explanation here, — the branches fail to appropriate and 
utilize the life of the vine. True discipleship will fill all the 
world with joy and with disciples. 

But, as the highest wisdom and good sense would direct, 
we lose our place in Christ if we bear no fruit. "Every 
branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away." This 
is the work of the husbandman, who is God, to whom the 
vineyard belongs ; God being here represented not simply 
as the vine-dresser, but also as the owner of the land. 

Then it is possible, if the meaning of this parable was 
intended to go so far, to come into organic relation with the 
True Vine, to be in it, to be a part of it, but to bring forth no 
fruit, and so to be cut off. In order to force these words into 
accordance with the doctrine that once in Christ, we are in 
Christ forever, good and wise men have adopted theories that 
are passing strange. One says that these cut-off branches 



394 CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. [Fourth Quahtek. 

were never really a part of the vine, but only shoots, with 
little or no life, and no fruit-bearing power. Another de- 
clares that the whole idea refers to nations, customs, insti- 
tutions, and the like, which, failing to come up to Christ's 
requirements, would be cut off as the Jews were. This may 
be a general truth ; but in verse v. the words are intensely 
personal, " he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same 
beareth much fruit." If words can convey any sense at all, 
not a people, a custom, or an institution is here meant, but 
surely a man. 

Meyer teaches that those cut off are only lip-Christians, 
who say, Lord, Lord; and these God separates from the 
fellowship of Christ. But how can they be separated if they 
were never united ? It seems to me that it is a more 
wholesome doctrine for us to teach that if a believer — yea, 
an apostle or an angel — severs himself from Christ, and 
seeks to live upon his past reputation or upon his imagined 
strength, upon the clearness of his intellect or the eminence 
of his position, he will prove to himself and to the world the 
truth of Christ's words, " Apart from me ye can do nothing." 
And so this useless thing, that neither honors God nor blesses 
man, will soon lie withered and dead among the branches 
that have been taken away. 

"He taketh it away." These words are solemn and 
awful. How far do they reach ? To how many do they 
apply ? May there not be some communing in our churches, 
walking amidst the congregation of worshippers, whom God 
has cut off because of a fruitless life ? It must be so. It 
cannot be that all the idlers, the covetous, the complainers, 
are growing yet in the Vine as true and real branches. 
Christ's life and vigor in them would compel fruitage. There 
are multitudes who, as the years go by, grow more and 
more useless ; whose lives seem to dwindle into narrowness, 
and whose hearts lose all responsiveness to the word and 



Eesson V.] GHEIST THE TRUE VINE. 395 

voice of God. I have read of a stream flowing from the 
mountains, fresh and strong, and rolling out into the desert, 
growing smaller as it flows, only to be lost at last among the 
the thirsty sands that absorb and drink it up. Such are 
some human lives, and these are surely they whom God 
" taketh away." 

And not only taken away are they, but cast forth and 
burned. We need not refer this fire to the consequences of 
the Last Judgment. There are other fires that kindle and 
burn. If a man turn away from Christ, his way to ruin is 
open. All the restraints that once held him being removed, 
he often takes the bit in his teeth, and rushes to quick and 
remediless ruin. Then comes the fire, — yea, a thousand 
hissing flames of new temptations, and aggravated sins, and 
multiplying sorrows. We should not have to go far to find 
more than one, who, having once had a good and honorable 
place among God's people, is now lying outside in the tor- 
ment of unrest and sorrow, looking back with infinite yearn- 
ing upon what used to be. " The face not always shows 
what ; s in the heart." Too many, alas ! daily realize that 
their life is virtually useless, — a long struggle for bread, and 
then a forgotten grave. They see that their place in the 
world is a very small one, that their impress upon men for 
good amounts to nothing, and they know, from observation 
and experience, if they know anything at all, that all this 
comes from living apart from Christ, cut off, and fit only for 
the fire of a continually renewed torment. And what fire 
burns with keener torture than such a remorse! 

One more process is suggested to us. The husbandman 
prunes the vines. He checks their luxuriance to stimulate 
their fruiting. " God would rather see his vines bleed than 
see them barren." 

This pruning is a painful process, but leads to enlarged 
usefulness. I have seen the pruning-knife at work in the 



396 CHRIST THE TRUE VINE. [Fourth Quarter. 

Father's hand. It was a hand of love that held it, and the 
hand was restrained by a heart of love; but the wholesome 
work went on. In one case health was cut off; in another, 
wealth. In this home, black-visaged Sorrow sat, and in that 
heart a deep grave was dug. Over there it was an empty 
cradle, and just around the corner they told a story about 
a boy that had gone away from home. All the earth was 
darkened, and light came only from heaven. Hence it was 
that those who stood in gloom were found looking upwards 
to the light, and moving lips sent silent prayers to God. 0, 
no, we must not think that the Husbandman is cruel, and 
lops off branches that ought to remain, or that he delights 
in seeing the bleeding and tearing of the branches. More 
fruit is what he seeks. The branches that are too luxu- 
riant may all go to leaf and bud. Not often are believers 
swept away from God by multiplied sorrows. Rather do 
these drive them to the cross. Prosperity has whelmed more 
souls in ruin than adversity. A life that is too full of ease 
is a home for vain confidence and pride. Those only are 
safe who, having learned the lessons of God, lay hold of 
heaven, and let the poor, treacherous world roll on beneath 
them. 



ilestfon vi. jpobember 8. 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

John xvi: 1-15. 
By Rev. THOMAS E. BARTLETT, Providence, R. I. 

SOME statements of Scripture are much more difficult to 
accept than others. Either there is in them an ele- 
ment which baffles a full understanding, or they seem at va- 
riance with accepted doctrines. The doctrine of the Holy 
Spirit has its difficulties. It contains a mysterious element. 
But we have the King of Truth as our teacher, and can 
study this truth in the very setting which he gave it. 

We consider, first, Christ's estimate of the Spirit's ministry 
in his disciples. Jesus gave to certain of his sayings a special 
emphasis. Sometimes he said, " I say unto you ; " sometimes, 
" Verily, verily, I say unto you." Twice he said, " I tell you 
of a truth." Once he introduced a saying with words which 
seem strange on such lips, — " I tell you the truth ; " and 
this strong assertion of the trustworthiness of his words was 
given as he approached a fresh announcement of the com- 
ing of the Spirit. Doubt must be held in check, that the 
words may not be spoken in vain. " Neveitheless I tell 
you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away." For 
the disciples' advantage that the Master should leave them 
in the world exposed to peril, that their Leader fall before 
the enemy at the beginning of his career, and that they be 
left to work without him ! How could it be ? To meet 
every rising doubt and to give unusual emphasis to a state- 



398 THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. [Fourth Quarter. 

ment certain to be questioned, Jesus condescended to say, 
" Nevertheless I tell you the truth." 

No one will think that this special assurance was not 
needed, or say that this solemn introduction is too weighty 
for the utterance which follows it. The certification is 
necessary even yet. There are many still who do not un- 
derstand that Christ's removal from the sight of men was 
best for the world and best for Christians. Every regret 
that Christ's hands cannot now be touched, that his face 
cannot be seen, that his voice does not still give audible 
answers to our questions, is evidence of the practical rejec- 
tion of this saying: "It is expedient for you that I go away." 
This assertion is tmconsciously questioned in another way. 
The longing for Christ's visible return, as though this would 
be the cure of present ills, questions it. There are some 
who can call the Church a widow, though Jesus said, " I am 
with you all the days." Disheartened by the delay of the 
earth's regeneration, many look for a new and better agency 
to hasten it. They suppose that when Jesus shall do what 
he refused to do on earth, when he shall descend in celestial 
glory from the high place of his permanent transfiguration, 
this new agency will outdo the preaching of the truth by 
men and the accompanying ministry of the Spirit of God. 
If it would, why is that return delayed for an hour ? This 
is only a crying out for Christ's visible presence, as though he 
had not said, " It is expedient for you that I go away." 

But if even now this saying needs emphasis and repetition 
to overcome the natural longing for the visible form, how 
needful were Christ's words at the first, when the departure 
wore the garb of calamity only, and men had not seen a 
single advantage in Christ's withdrawal from human sight. 
Let us put ourselves in thought with the apostles on the 
evening before the crucifixion. What appears to be a dark 
calamity is now plainly seen. Jesus speaks of the intense 



Lesson VI.] THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 399 

hatred of the world against himself. He gives no quieting 
description of the storm about to burst upon him and then 
upon his apostles. We can understand that it was expe- 
dient for Christ to escape from the rage of a hostile world 
and return to the bright home he had left. We understand 
his words, " If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I said; 
I go unto the Father ; " but the apostles are to be left to 
face the wolves and to endure for years the distresses of 
persecution. They were to be treated as wicked men. So 
high would the rage against them rise, men would come to 
think that killing them was rendering acceptable service to 
God. " Nevertheless," said Jesus, " it is expedient for you 
that I go away." 

Two great afflictions for the apostles were involved in 
the Master's departure. First, they were to part with him 
who had invited their trust and richly rewarded it, who had 
stood between them and peril, and had awakened in their 
souls the desire to be with him forever. Secondly, the re- 
moval of the Master was to be the signal for persecution. 
The apostles would soon be the target for the arrows of 
death. Martyrdom, ^swift and sharp, or lingering and slow, 
awaited them. We must not even attempt to make these 
afflictions seem small. It was a loss to have Jesus taken 
away. It was an affliction to have human hate, fanned to 
fury, enclose them ; and yet Jesus said there was gain for 
the disciples in his going away. 

How is the loss to be made good ? How shall violent per- 
secution be offset? What gift can compensate for the ab- 
sence of Christ and the on-rush of the nation's wrath ? What 
supernatural legacy will be able, not only to neutralize losses 
and pains so great, but to leave those who are to suffer 
such sorrows better off than they were before the distresses 
came ? Christ has such a gift in reserve. He alone meas- 
ured the value of the endowment soon to come to his 



400 THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. [Fourth Quartxr. 

Church. When he shall name it, it will seem an unsub- 
stantial gift. It is the gift of the Spirit. A special bestow- 
ment of the Spirit of God is promised, of that Spirit who is 
called the Spirit of truth, and the Comforter, or Helper, of 
the Church. Learn Christ's estimate of this gift, and make 
that measure your own. The promise of the Spirit's coming 
Is the very heart of Christ's farewell address. It finds a 
place in the fourteenth, the fifteenth, and the sixteenth chap- 
ters of the Fourth Gospel. It is evident that Jesus had in 
mind for himself and his disciples a strong consolation. To 
this priceless address we turn for words which touch the 
heights and the depths of comfort. What is the teaching in 
this farewell discourse which is most prominent by position, 
repetition and fulness of statement ? It is this : there is 
a gift in reserve ; grace has one more reliance ; the Spirit 
of truth will come. 

What glowing anticipation of the Spirit's day ! What 
serenity of heart was Christ's, in view of this last reliance 
of grace which would make truth clear to the disciples and 
to the world ! In fifty days the promise was fulfilled. Then 
doubt, timidity, weakness, fled from the apostles' hearts, and 
the victories of the truth were multiplied. Under the same 
ministry we are passing our lives. To the Spirit it is due 
that Christians are conscious of Christ's presence, that Christ, 
raised now above the limitations of a localized existence, 
the dream of a kingdom of force proved vain, can be with 
his people always, in every part of the world. 

But will the Spirit be a helper only in the hearts of 
Christians? They needed help in another quarter. They 
were to press their message upon the acceptance of men 
unfriendly to it. What if in their evangelizing they should 
be helped by an ally who could work upon even hostile 
hearts ? Such was our Lord's announcement, and with what 
evident precision and exactness the words fell ! " When 



Lksson VI.] THE WOEK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 401 

lie is come, he will convince the world of sin, and of right- 
eousness, and of judgment : of sin, because they believe not 
on me ; of righteousness, because I go unto my Father and 
ye see me no more ; of judgment, because the prince of this 
world hath been judged." 

Consider next, then, Christ's outline of the Spirit's work 
upon the world. 

No earnest mind can be satisfied with any superficial 
treatment of these words. Reverence for Christ impels us 
to seek a profound meaning, and yet one which the words 
were evidently intended to convey. We were not told these 
things about the Holy Spirit to mystify us. The Spirit's 
work has been brought within reach of earnest study. In 
the midst of a summer shower a tree by the road-side is torn 
by the lightning. You may know little of the nature of 
electricity, or of the laws which govern its action ; but the 
effect of the lightning you can examine at your leisure. 
There, before you, is one of its manifestations. So Jesus 
directed our thought to the work which would manifest the 
invisible and mysterious Spirit. His work will be upon the 
minds and hearts of men. He will bring men to see truth 
as they never saw it before. He will produce such a sense 
of sin that there shall be no doubt in men's minds of their 
guilt before God. He will make them certain that righteous- 
ness is not a mere name or a dream, but something real. 
He will bring a conviction of the certainty of judgment, 
giving assurance that sin will not be suffered to lift itself 
up forever. Men shall be certified of the reality of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment, so that when they venture 
to deny any one of these, they will hear a voice within them- 
selves rebuking their denial. 

If Jesus had said no more, we should have had a precious 
truth. That men may accept the message from God, they 
must be in a measure conscious of their woe. They need 



402 THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. [Fourth Quarter. 

to see that between sin and righteousness there is a vast 
gulf, and that sin will not escape judgment ; and the Spirit, 
Christ declares, will produce these convictions. But to his 
promise that the Spirit will " convince the world," the Saviour 
adds something: he tells us what means the Spirit will 
use. He will not employ the agencies of another world, 
as the ministry of angels; he will not work directly by 
visions or dreams. He will use means which men can help 
supply, so that we can see how our work and the Spirit's 
work may be joined together. He will convince, disciples 
must preach. He will use these truths, which Christian 
preaching must supply : " They believe not on me ; I go unto 
my Father ; the prince of this world hath been judged." 
Other truths may be dark, but not these. These must be 
such as even unbelievers can understand. They cannot 
themselves need proof, they are to be used to press home 
other truths. Men while still rejecting Christ, — the world 
of unbelievers, are to be convinced of sin because they be- 
lieve not on Christ ; of righteousness, because Christ goes to 
his Father; of judgment, because the prince of this world 
has been judged. With this in mind, we must not put 
upon these expressions any obscure meaning. 

The first is plain : the Spirit will bring conviction of sin 
because men believe not on Christ. The thing to be pressed 
home is human sinfulness ; the means to be used in doing 
this is man's rejection of Christ. But what is the process ? 
Let the character of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels be set 
before men ; let his words and deeds, his blended lowliness 
and majesty, let all be told, — the high claims he made, the 
proofs he furnished in superhuman words and works; and 
men will not discover one stain upon that life. Disclose, 
then, fully, the treatment men gave this spotless Being : that 
there was no outburst of love toward him, as there must 
have been in a sinless world; that there was coldness, 



Lesson VI.] THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 403 

criticism, suspicion, hostility, and at last wrath so malignant 
and furious that men laid violent hands upon the Just One, 
hurried him to the death of a criminal, and gave him inso- 
lence in his dying hours. In that passionate enmity to the 
Sinless One, the human heart disclosed its real attitude 
toward God. The clearest revelation of God's character 
had been given, and human nature did not bow down before 
it, but, as though muttering in a horrid undertone the words 
of Milton's Satan to the sun, " Oh, how I hate thy beams ! " 
men rose in wrath and thrust Christ away. 

But this was in a far-off age. Is this, then, too dark a 
picture of human nature in our day ? Men do not now 
have the opportunity to lay hostile hands on Christ, but 
they look upon the revelation of his perfect character, they 
recognize his goodness, and have the heart to stand aloof 
from him. What if the modern unbeliever had been in 
Pilate's place, or had stood with the priests or the soldiers : 
would he have braved the passion of the hour and stood 
forth a saint ? Knowing the cowardice and the low sel- 
fishness of which human hearts on occasion are capable, 
dare any of us declare that we should have shown heroism 
as defenders of the insulted Christ ? Less trying scenes 
have proved but too plainly what our strength is. Because 
we have hearts capable of rejecting Christ, because we have 
turned to him the look of unbelief, we are convinced of our 
sinfulness. We have looked upon the glories of a heavenly 
sunrise, and the beauty has not won our love ; we have seen 
the very embodiment of our own ideals, and we have been 
willing to turn away ; and the Spirit makes this discovery of 
ourselves to fasten the conviction of our sin upon us. 

The second part of the Spirit's work may seem less clear. 
We are told that he will produce in the world a conviction 
of righteousness, because Christ goes to the Father and is 
seen no more. Eighteousness is to be brought to light, and 



404 THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. [Fourth Quarter. 

the means of doing this is the manifest going of Christ 
to the Father and becoming invisible. We are convinced of 
the existence of some exceptional virtue by seeing an ex- 
ample of it. How could men be made to believe in the 
reality of righteousness but by seeing an embodiment of it? 
Among men righteousness is, at best, stained and dim. The 
vision of perfect righteousness had vanished from the earth, 
but that vanished vision was restored in Christ. Perfection 
was here for years in a living Person before the gaze of men ; 
but men did not at first know that they were looking upon 
sinlessness and perfect righteousness. They must be made 
to see this. Unbelief itself must be convinced that Christ 
was a righteous being. How and when ? By his sufferings, 
by his divine bearing when facing death, and especially by 
reflection upon his life, illumined by his death, after he was 
gone. In this we cannot be mistaken, said Jesus, when 
about to go forth to death, and in full view of the cross. 
" That the world may know that I love the Father ... so 
I do. Arise, let us go." And the world did learn, in the 
bearing of Jesus in his last sufferings, that he was righteous. 
The trial was his vindication, before conscience, of every 
charge. The crucifixion was the exhibition of his divine 
virtue. " I go to my Father : " the words point to the dying 
Christ. With these words Jesus spoke of his dying in all 
his farewell address. The dying scene, not the ascension,*, 
was made conspicuous before the world. The crucifixion 
took place amid surging multitudes, at a time when Jerusa- 
lem was overfilled with pilgrims. The sufferer's name and 
title were made known in three languages. Attention was 
further a' rested by the supernatural darkness at noonday. 
And now there are for the world four full accounts of that 
going to the Father. Ponder, nay, read with seriousness, the 
simple recital of the events of that day, and you will at 
least be convinced that Christ was not a malefactor, you 



Lesson VI.] THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 405 

will readily adopt as your own the centurion's confession, 
" Truly this was a righteous man." 

The Spirit will bring conviction " of judgment, because the 
prince of this world hath been judged." This judgment of 
the world's prince must be something which the world can 
know. It is to have the influence of a test-case in court, — 
the certainty that judgment will elsewhere be produced by 
it. " The prince of this world cometh," said Christ as he 
looked forward to Calvary. We, too, will look that way to 
see him. We see wickedness working its will unhindered. 
Did not sin in Caiaphas, in the rulers, in Pilate, in the sol- 
diers, in the multitude, uncoil itself as if by an irresistible 
compulsion, and at last exhibit its whole terrible length ? 
The prince of this world was unseen ; but does conscience 
need much proof that he was there ? On the cross was 
spotless innocence, around it raged a pitiless enmity ; on the 
cross was measureless love, around it surged a sea of fiendish 
hate. If Satan had been visible, he could have added nothing 
to that exhibition of sin. We say sin was exposed on that 
day, — "judged," said Christ ; " the prince of this world has 
been judged : " not punished, but exposed and condemned, 
judged as the prisoner in court is judged when he is proved 
guilty and sentenced as a criminal, even before the hand of 
law takes him from the bar. Conscience, though clouded by 
sin, sees this towering manifestation of sin, and condemns it 
in haste ; and conscience enlightened, we know not how 
much, by the Spirit of God, tells us that its own judgment is 
but the diminished echo of the sentence on high. 

0, the depths of wisdom, and wisdom not of this world, 
disclosed at the cross of Christ, that, looking thither, the 
heart of man can be convinced of sin, of righteousness, and 
of judgment ! The Spirit has not wrought in vain. He has 
given us in their present form the narratives of Christ ; he 
hovers over us when we ponder the fourfold story. He does 



406 THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. [Fourtu Quarter. 

his work in every heart that is made to look intently upon 
the suffering Lamb of God. Already the conviction of sin 
is wide spread. Where Christ is preached, there is abroad a 
full recognition of his righteousness. There is now among 
us a general belief that sin stands condemned, and is in 
danger of the doom it deserves. And this is the result of 
the preaching of Christ crucified, and of the Spirit's influence 
upon even the unbelieving. All this is true of many around 
us. They are convinced, but not subdued ; they have not 
only been brought to hear the Gospel, they have been made 
the objects of the Spirit's solicitude : and still they delay ; 
but no new gospel can be given, and no mightier spirit can 

come. 

" No more let sin deceive, 
Nor earthly cares betray. 
Oh, let us never, never grieve 
The Comforter away ! " 



ile05on vii. jftotoember 15. 
CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR HIS DISCIPLES. 

John xcii : 1-19. 
By Rev. JOHN 11. GOW, Bridgeport, Coxn. 

I^HIS wonderful prayer of Jesus, the first two sections 
of which form our lesson to-day, besets the expository 
preacher with many difficulties. Chief among them is its 
bewildering richness of suggestion and material for thought. 
The explanation of the text in its details must therefore 
be left to the commentators. Nor is the task which remains 
an easy one ; namely, to bring to light the inner unity of 
the prayer, and to group its abundance in sufficiently logical 
order to secure the definite impression which should follow 
even an expository sermon. 

The words, " I pray," call attention to the main petition, 
" Keep them, guard them diligently as prisoners of thy 
grace ; " " not that thou shouldst take them from the world, 
but that thou shouldst keep them from the Evil One." 

Many reasons determined Jesus to pray thus for the dis- 
ciples at this time. He was standing at the end of his 
earthly mission. For him to go away was to leave the sheep 
without a shepherd, — to be scattered, unprotected, helpless. 
Joy might, to be sure, even then come to them out of his 
words. By and by it should be completed in them. But 
his kingdom and the salvation of their fellow-men forbade 
removing them at once from contact with the world. He 
had indeed taken them out of its thoughts and sympathies, 



408 CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

but in so doing he had stirred up against them the bitter 
opposition of ungodly uien. Besides this, he had even sent 
them out to proclaim the message of truth, just as the Father 
had sent him. They could expect no better treatment than 
he was receiving. All the forces of evil would be speedily 
arrayed against them in violent attack. Good need that 
they be protected, when the ordinary assaults of wickedness 
were too much for their fellows ! Moreover, the Lord's own 
glory was to be intrusted to these disciples. The future of 
his mission of redemption lay with them. Their victory 
was to be his victory, their defeat would be his defeat. 
For themselves and for his work as well, the temporary 
protection which they had received from Jesus' bodily 
presence must be superseded by the eternal and spiritual 
protection of the Holy Father. And so in wise forethought 
and tenderest love he prays, " Holy Father, keep them." 

What reasons existed for such a prayer which are not as 
powerful to-day ? Who does not need the Father's keeping, 
as did the apostles ? Are we not weak and easily bewil- 
dered ? Do we not go astray ? 

" Are there no foes for me to face? 
Must I not stem the flood 1 
Is this vile world a friend to grace, 
To help me on to God?" 

Or has the Master ceased to love his humble followers, or 
changed in his gracious purposes toward them ? Who, then, 
shall deny us the comfort of believing that this prayer is 
verily the constant request of our Master for his beloved, 
even until the assaults of the Adversary are at an end ? 

But this prayer points out where and how they are to 
be kept, as well as from what they are to be kept. The 
request reads, according to the best accredited text, " Keep 
them in thy name which thou hast given me." As to an 
enchanted ground whereon no evil thing may find a footing, 



Lesson VII.] CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. 409 

the Master remands the disciples to the realm of life sug- 
gested by the Christ-borne " name " of God. Jesus, " he 
who saves," and Immanuel, " God with us," were the names 
which the angels gave to the child of Bethlehem. "The 
Son of the living God " was the name that fell from Peter's 
lips, and won the benediction, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
Jona ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
my Father which is in heaven." " My beloved Son," said 
the "Voice out of the cloud" on the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion. " And his name is called The Word of God," writes 
the Apocalyptic seer, "and he hath ... a name written, 
King of kings and Lord of lords." "Wherefore also God 
highly exalted him, . . . and gave unto him the name which 
is above every name ; that in the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow of things in heaven and things on earth, and 
that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, to the 
glory of God the Father." 

With such copious revelations as reside in these divine 
names given to Jesus, the lives of the disciples were to be 
filled to the exclusion of all else. No suggestion of evil could 
approach them, occupied with thoughts of his wonderful 
majesty and redeeming grace. There would be no room in 
them for other loves, possessed as they would be by admir- 
ing gratitude for him who loved them while they were yet 
sinners. There would be no chance for mischief to defile 
their hands, busy in serving him. 

This was familiar ground for the disciples. Already Jesus 
had been keeping them in this way. At first, without know- 
ing him as God's Son, they had been constrained to better 
living by acquaintance with his character. Little by little, 
he had preoccupied their hearts with holier affections. The 
ministries of his Gospel, too, had crowded out their grosser 
purposes and shameful ambitions. Especially had the Evil 
One been less able to lead them astray in the paths of a false 



410 CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

religiousness, since they had learned the loving character 
of their heavenly Father and the direct approaches to him 
illustrated by Jesus in his daily worship. 

Obviously there is in such protection nothing of that 
magical element which even the best of Christians are in 
danger of importing into their thought about God's keeping 
of his own. The providential care of our heavenly Father 
is a blessed fact in the experience of his beloved, not to be 
overthrown by any spirit of rationalism ; yet the student 
of this prayer cannot but feel that the wonder of moral 
transformation under the power of spiritual truth is the only 
interposition that is proposed. Nor is it safe to esteem 
lightly the defence against evil which lies in a consecrated 
daily life. Missionary biography at home and abroad is full 
of startling testimony to it. Indeed, this limiting of the 
way in which God shall keep us is, after all, not a limiting, 
but a lifting of the whole matter out of the realm where 
" the world, the flesh, and the devil " are strong, into the 
spiritual realm, where they are waging a losing, though hotly 
contested, battle. Who of us, then, would wish to carry on 
the fight on other ground ? Or who would ask God to keep 
him from the Evil One, while he is unwilling to commit 
himself to the divine method of protection ? Let us, then, 
beloved, open wide the citadels of life to the mighty forces 
of God's glorious redemption. " And the peace of God, 
which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts 
and your thoughts in Christ Jesus." 

Though it was in respect to only a little company, it was 
no little thing for Jesus to be able at last to say, " I mani- 
fested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the 
world ; . . . and they knew of a truth that I came forth 
from thee, and they believed that thou didst send me." The 
one great need of the world is knowledge of the being and 
character of God. The story of pagan nations bears ample 



Lesson VII.J CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. 411 

witness to the moulding power of religious ideals. Israel's 
progress in moral integrity and religious purity was due to 
new and better conceptions of the God of Israel. A true 
theology is not the sign so much as the efficient cause of 
higher civilization and a more spiritual faith. The cry of 
an awakened Church, " Let us evangelize the multitude," is 
false to history unless it is born of a deeper cry, " Let us 
show God as he is." The Christian centuries are the pro- 
duct of a knowledge of God imparted to eleven men. It 
may be pleasant to our ambition and our pride to be the 
centres of large companies of professed Christians ; but the 
divine method for us may perchance be followed better, 
and the results be grander after all, if we are content to 
seek quality rather than quantity. There is a spiritual evo- 
lution of ideas which depends on intensity of impression. 
The very importance of our message increases the burden 
on us to reveal the character and purposes of God our 
Saviour just as perfectly as we can, whether to few or to 
many. 

We must remember that this prayer identifies the knowl- 
edge of God with the eternal life. It declares that the mis- 
sion of Jesus was to give eternal life to the world. But this 
does not mean that he came to open up or confirm the hope 
of a future life which is to be simply what the present would 
be if freed from its depressing conditions and its distressing- 
events. Much of our ordinary thought about eternal life is 
of that crude sort. The New Testament in its imagery gives 
some support to such notions. But here, where Jesus is in 
most solemn fashion attempting a real definition, he speaks 
of a spiritual relation to God, wherein all a man's faculties 
lay hold on " him in whom we live and move and have our 
being." Such a conception of eternal life yields readily the 
idea of divine protection of which we are talking. What 
keeps men from the Evil One is the power, not of an end- 



412 CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

less existence, but of an eternal life. God put the lesser of 
these upon humanity once for all, and in spite of it human- 
ity is given up to evil. He imparts the other to human 
consciousness with painstaking and difficulty through the 
revelation of himself in Jesus Christ. But when this is 
done, his " Lo, I am with you alway ! " becomes a wall of 
defence and a tower of strength. " Looking up in unceas- 
ing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus," writes that marvel of 
missionaries, John G. Paton, " I left all in his hands, and 
felt immortal till my work was done." This is the sublime 
life that is "hid with Christ in God," possible for all be- 
lievers, attained by too few, yet coming ever through be- 
holding " the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face of Jesus Christ." Here is the Masters own 
explanation of the preservation of the saints, — no magic, 
no constraint, no mystery, only the power of the Gospel to 
deliver from all the assaults of evil, him whose life is given 
to that life. 

Now, it was also for this that Jesus was about to sanctify 
himself in his atoning death, that they, in turn, might be 
consecrated wholly to the same revealing of grace and sal- 
vation. Their sanctification was to come when the Holy 
Spirit should take of the things of Christ and show them 
unto the disciples. But this could be only after the finish- 
ing of his sacrificial work. He must die for the sins of the 
people before the disciples could receive the truth in full, 
or be sanctified in it. Then, under the tremendous impetus 
of that greatest revelation of God's love and majesty, Peter 
and the apostles and many others after them might be so 
changed that the world would have no power to hurt them, 
and that their prayer should ever be, " Grant unto thy ser- 
vants to speak thy word with all boldness." 

We are now prepared, in retrospective view, better to see 
the place and meaning of Jesus' prayer for himself, " glorify 



Lesson VII] CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. 413 

thy Son." If the name of God is the sphere in which, and 
the means by which, disciples are to be kept for service in 
the world, there is every reason for the setting forth of that 
name in all its splendor. The hour for an advance in reve- 
lation had come. All that Jesus could do, in the flesh, to 
make God known, he had done Only under the illumina- 
tion of his crowning deeds could the real conceptions, lying 
back of his conduct and teaching, come clearly into view. 
His victory was to be won amid the strong passion of his 
soul ; for a man's greatest victory is to compel a true vision 
of his character. And this Jesus must secure in the Gar- 
den and on the Cross. For this supreme hour in Jesus' life 
was the supreme hour in the world's redemption. It was 
to prove that the humanity, which God had made in his 
own image, was able, even after ages of degeneracy, if only 
divinity were "tenting" in it, to rise to the heights of holy 
activity to which the Creator had destined it. Then, too, 
a well-nigh hopeless creation was to learn that its Creator 
would go to all wise and necessary lengths of atoning sacri- 
fice, in the effort to bring his sinful creatures back to him- 
self in love and service. He had come very close to them 
by his prophets. He was nearer yet in the person of his 
only-begotten Son. His heart was to beat as their hearts, 
when the voice should cry, " My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me?" Then indeed "God was in Christ, rec- 
onciling the world unto himself," bearing our sins " in his 
own body on the tree." 

In all this, the glory of both Father and Son was to be 
enhanced. For glory is but the reputation, with its accom- 
panying splendors, which genuine character obtains in the 
eyes of intelligent beings. All through his public ministry 
Jesus had sought to be known for what he was. Starting 
out with odium attaching to his family and residence, his 
early occupation and lack of training, he heroically faced - 



414 CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarteh. 

and largely overcame it. Still more to silence the doubts 
of friends and the sneers of foes, he in this last hour sought 
with eager longing for further glory in the sight of men 
and angels. He would have nothing less than the glory 
which he had among the hosts of heaven before he took the 
form of man. It mattered much to him what men thought 
of his words and deeds and character. His glory was to be 
the lever to pry open their unbelieving minds. All that 
earth and heaven might have for him, he therefore sum- 
moned to his aid. The damning crime of ordinary men is 
selfishness. But Jesus, " the effulgence of God's glory and 
the very image of his substance," perfectly unites the selfish 
and the unselfish. To be or to have less than is his por- 
tion would be to lessen his ability to reveal his Father, and 
thus would thwart the grandly unselfish design of his in- 
carnation. To glorify God by manifesting his name, Jesus 
must seek all that can be crowded into and upon himself of 
fullest glory on earth and in heaven. 

Do we not find just here a rich suggestion for adjusting 
the persistent conflict between our proper instinct of self- 
love and our duty to forget self in loving God and men ? 
Is it not true that as we, like Jesus, really exist in the 
image of God, our own glory becomes the glorifying of our 
God "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the fir- 
mament showeth his handy-work." Much more, then, should 
man, the most wonderful of his creations, do this. Our phy- 
sical organism, mental powers, and spiritual faculties would 
in themselves praise our Maker. How much more should 
this be true when the Scripture teachings so closely identify 
the redeemed and their Redeemer? The avowed purpose of 
the Gospel is to restore our lost estate. With conscious and 
humble reference of all the processes of our salvation to God 
himself, we may well seek to be all that we can be, Indeed, 
as long as our endeavor is in the direction of holy living, 



Lesson VII.] CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR DISCIPLES. 415 

we may even pray that God shall make us honorable in the 
sight of our fellows, and may glory in our attainments. If 
the " greatest thing in the world " is love, and love is at its 
best in action, we too may reverently say, when we are 
loving unto sacrifice, " He that hath seen me, hath seen " 
something of "the Father." 

Finally, the issue of the glorifying, the keeping, and the 
sanctifying of the disciples is " that they may be one, even 
as we are," or, more fully, " that they may all be one ; even 
as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may 
be in us." " Now the God of patience and of comfort grant 
you to be of the same mind one with another according to 
Christ Jesus : that with one accord ye may with one mouth 
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." " So 
then ye are . . . fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the 
household of God, being built upon the foundation of the 
apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief 
corner-stone ; in whom each several building, fitly framed to- 
gether, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord ; in whom 
ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the 
Spirit." 



JU0$on vni. jpobcmber 22. 



CHRIST BETEAYED. 

John xviii: 1-13. 
By Rev. Professor W. N. CLARKE, D. I)., Hamilton, N. Y. 

BEHOLD our Saviour at the turning-point of his career. 
Until now lie has lived the ordinary life of inter- 
course with men, moving about with his disciples, fulfilling 
the mission of the days ; but now on a sudden all is changed, 
and he passes from his free life into the hands of enemies, 
to be led to death. Now he steps out from what is known 
as his " life " into what is called his " passion : " life is behind 
him, and death is close before. In our lesson we look upon 
him at this turning-point 

See how quietly the turning point comes. It is like most 
turning-points, — a step forward, and it is done! Jesus 
has spent the evening with his disciples in the upper room 
around the table, in high, sweet conversation, ending with 
a great and solemn prayer. The interview over, he lends 
them out into the night. The eastern limit of Jerusalem is 
a deep ravine, Kidron, the course of a winter torrent. Be- 
yond it lies an enclosure named Gethsemane, or the oil-press, 
— a pla-ce of olive-trees, a quiet spot in which he has often 
found seclusion and repose with the little company of his 
friends. Thither he leads them now. One of the band has 
turned traitor, negotiated with the enemies of Jesus, and 
secured a band of armed men for the arrest of the Man of 



Lesson VIII.] CHRIST BETRAYED. 417 

Peace. Judas, gifted with the privileges of discipleship, 
knows the habit of the Master, and thinks to find him in 
the garden. What intimacy — what intimacy abused — do 
we see in this conviction of the betrayer that after such 
intercourse in the upper room as he was banished from, the 
Master will go forth beneath the sky for quiet prayer and 
contemplation ! And thus it comes to pass that the decisive 
hour strikes. Jesus goes as he is wont, and the traitor takes 
advantage of what discipleship has taught him ; so that the 
Saviour of men walks straight into the death that awaits 
him. How quietly meet the forces that turn his face toward 
death ! 

When we view our Lord in this crisis, we shall do well to 
remember that we are studying the Fourth Gospel, — the 
record and remembrance of the disciple whom Jesus loved. 
It has often been remarked that the Jesus of the Fourth 
Gospel is always kingly. Even throughout the passion John 
portrays him as always bearing himself with the self-posses- 
sion of the true king of men. In this tender recollection 
of his dearest friend, he is not the victim but the conqueror. 
Calm, master of himself, aware of the significance of all that 
happens, he is the royal centre around whom gather all the 
persons of the drama. John does not gainsay the other 
narratives, which show us that the calmness was not gained 
without struggle ; but he portrays our Lord in lovely and 
glorious self-possession. Here in the garden the kingly suf- 
fering begins. We are prepared for it, indeed, and look for 
the movements of a king, when once we have listened to the 
conversation in the upper room, and heard the prayer that 
he has just offered to his Father. One who has prayed in 
such a strain will be a king, we are sure, whatever comes 
upon him. Therefore we are not surprised when, in the 
record of the friend who knew him best, we see our Lord 
the only person in the whole group who is master of himself, 

27 



418 CHRIST BETRAYED. [Fourth Quarter. 

and find him still the strong, unselfish Jesus whom we have 
always known. 

This kingly, divine self-poise is the explanation of the 
scene that we meet first in our lesson. 

It is a most surprising scene. All unexpected, save as 
Jesus knew all things that were coming upon him, approach 
the traitor and his company. Judas guides the soldiers to 
the place. They are armed, of course, and they come hear- 
ing lanterns and surrounded by the glare of torches. The 
moon is at the full ; but either because it is clouded in or 
because the shade of the olive-trees is deep, they bring these 
lights to find their prisoner. The disciples are looking for 
nothing of the kind ; but the prophetic heart of the Master 
foreknew this, and he sent Judas out from the company 
of love, that he might do it quickly. When Jesus saw the 
flare of the torches and heard the tread of the coming troop, 
he knew at once, "This is it: the hour is come; now 
death lays hold upon me." Now therefore, if we watch him 
when the hour is come, we shall see what manner of person 
he really is. He will be no exception to the rule that crises 
reveal character. 

You or I might hide, and let them search us out beneath 
the shade. Why must one hasten the event of death ? Let 
them bring it on when they can. But not so does he. As 
for Jesus, he "knowing all things that were coming upon 
him, went forth, and met them, and saith unto them, Whom 
seek ye ? " Not hiding, not evading, not delaying the event, 
he stands forth at once, takes the initiative himself, and him- 
self directs the transactions of the hour. " Whom seek ye ? " 
he asks. "Jesus of Nazareth " is the answer,— not, prob- 
ably, of Judas, who is now mentioned as standing with them, 
but of some officer invested with authority to make the 
seizure. " I am he," is the calm reply of Jesus, who stands 
facing them, in perfect self-possession. They have come 



Lesson VIII.] CHRIST BETRAYED. 419 

out — half guard, half mob — to seize a dangerous enemy 
of the state, and here stands before them, this calm and 
simple-hearted Man, transparently pure and sweet, the no- 
bility of goodness upon his brow, the candor of truth in the 
tones of his voice, the tenderness of love in his entire bear- 
ing. He has no fear of them ; he stands immeasurably 
superior to them. There is no halo on his head, no outlay- 
ing of light and glory from his person ; but there is a shin- 
ing forth of what he really is, — an effluence of goodness, 
dignity, and power, by which a panic is instantly wrought 
among the men who came to seize him. Back they turn, 
they scatter, they stumble, they fall to the ground. They 
cannot lay their hands on him, or bear his fearless gaze, or 
even stand before him. There is no miracle about it, save 
as he is always miracle, — always human indeed, but always 
more than human in goodness, truth, and power. It is he 
that has done it, — he himself, by virtue of what is in him 
of personal dignity and evident moral grandeur. 

But they rise and rally again. This must not continue ; 
if he has overawed them, he must even help them, for they 
must do that for which they have come. Again therefore 
he asks, " Whom seek ye ? " and when they answer " Jesus 
of Nazareth," he says, " I told you that I am he." But now 
he adds, turning to the little group that stood about him, " If 
therefore ye seek me, let these go their way." John, with 
the keen, sympathetic eyes of love, saw far into his Mas- 
ter's heart in this, and discerned the motive with which he 
craved safety for his friends. That very night in prayer he 
had said, " Of those whom thou gavest me I lost not one." 
He would not lose them, therefore he would guard them 
from trial greater than they could bear. Feeble in faith, 
untrained in hard experiences, not yet clear in understanding 
what their Master meant, they could not yet drink the cup 
that he was about to drink, or be baptized with the baptism 



420 CHRIST BETRAYED. [Fourth Quarter. 

that he must undergo, and he would not bring them into the 
trial that must open before them if they went with him. 
Behold, he is the same Jesus, " Saviour, Brother, Friend.'' 
No threatening of death has turned his heart inward upon 
himself to the forgetting of his little ones. He still knows 
his own heart and directs his own course, and still does he 
hold love and tenderness toward these weak disciples as the 
strong motive of his heart. He saved them from further 
trouble, but himself he would not save. For them we hear 
him interceding that they may live, while for himself he 
turns not away from death. 

It seems, however, as we look on, as if the disciples in 
their folly were bound to defeat his thoughtfulness, and get 
themselves seized along with him. The next thing that we 
see is the flashing of a sword, — not in the hands of some 
unawed ruffian in the band of Judas, but in the hands of 
Simon Peter, the leader of the apostles. Somehow he has 
obtained a sword, and now he draws it, and strikes out at 
the head of a man over against him in the varying light. 
So far does he miss his aim that he cuts off only an ear of 
the man, — one Malchus, servant of the high-priest. It is 
an attempt at rescue. The Lord's calm comprehension of 
the crisis has not communicated itself to all the company. 
But the main light from his act falls not so much on Peter 
as on the Lord himself. Once more in a crisis that calls 
for action does he stand revealed. The rash attempt at 
rescue throws its light on him and adds to the revelation 
of the hour. There he stands, the same as before, — the 
King. A disciple may act rashly, but if he does so he must 
be restrained and reproved, and the truth about this myste- 
rious crisis must be spoken. Therefore the Lord speaks, 
uttering the genuine spirit of the Son of God, and says to 
Peter, " Put up the sword into the sheath ; the cup which 
my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ? " 



Lesson VIII] CHRIST BETRAYED. 421 

We call this submission. So it is ; but it differs profoundly 
from what we call by that name in our common experience. 
It is not submission to the inevitable. There is an element 
in the occurrence that distinguishes it from that form of sub- 
mission, which we find hard enough sometimes, but which 
nevertheless is easier than resistance to the inevitable. We 
shall see the difference if we complete the story from the 
narrative of Luke. There we read that when the ear of 
Malchus had been cut off, Jesus answered and said, " Suffer 
ye thus far," and touched the ear and healed it. And what 
did he mean by " Suffer ye thus far " ? Already was he a 
prisoner, not yet bound, but already held in restraint by the 
men who surrounded him. Where he was standing, he 
could not reach the man upon whom he wished to lay a 
healing hand. Therefore he asked for the use of his hand, 
and perhaps for liberty to move a step or two. " Permit me 
thus far ; let me use my hand as far as this," — so said 
the Mighty One of God, humbly and courteously craving 
permission of his captors to stretch forth the hand whose 
touch could heal. They did not refuse him ; and stretching 
out his hand by their permission, he willed that a touch upon 
the wounded ear should give it soundness and health again. 
Health came at his touch ; and then, drawing back his hand, 
he gave it once more into the keeping of the men who had 
but now gone backward and fallen to the ground at the 
shining forth of his goodness. When now they had that 
hand in their grasp again, and he was wholly their prisoner, 
they thought well to make sure of their capture ; and so — 
wonder of wonders ! — they laid their thongs upon his hands 
and bound him fast. That was their way with prisoners ; 
for who can escape when he is firmly bound ? See then the 
gentle Jesus in bonds ; see the hands from which health has 
just been flowing bound with cords ; see the Lord of life 
bound and not resisting ! 



422 CHRIST BETRAYED. [Fourth Quarter. 

It is a great sight, and divinely instructive. One of his 
friends has drawn a sword to kill his captors ; but he has 
firmly forbidden the sword, and insisted upon drinking this, 
the cup which his Father has given him. Eejecting all 
resistance, he has craved permission of his enemies to do 
a work of healing power ; he has wrought that deed, re- 
turned his hand to their keeping, and yielded it to their 
cords. This is submission ; but who says it is submission 
to the inevitable ? This is submission to the appointment 
of the Father. He did not bow as we do when we cannot 
do otherwise. He was master of himself and master of his 
destiny. He submitted, but he also consented. He did not 
merely yield to the appointment of his Father ; he ac- 
cepted it. He was not a victim, but a king ; and this whole 
course was kingly action. He went with his enemies, not 
as their slave, but as a royal freeman, going by his own will 
as well as by theirs. 

Herein he differs from us. We think it great to accept 
the inevitable and to make a virtue of necessity. We say, 
" The cup which the Father hath given me, m ust I not 
drink it ? " ignoring the bitterness, since we cannot put 
the cup away. He said, :< The cup which the Father hath 
given me, shall I not drink it ? " Shall I not ? Can 1 
seek to do otherwise ? Shall not my will accept it ? This 
is genuine self-sacrifice, — a grace of which there is but 
little in accepting the bare inevitable and making a virtue 
of necessity. In truth, you cannot really make a virtue of 
necessity, any more than you can make bread of stones or 
clothes of newspapers. Necessity is not material for making 
virtue. The true self-sacrifice comes when it is not the 
inevitable that constrains us, but the heavenly Father's will, 
— when we bow, not to necessity, but to God, even our own 
God, whose will is right, and most acceptable to our obe- 
dient souls. Such was the mind of Jesus, and such is the 



Lesson VIII.] CHRIST BETRAYED. 423 

mind for us. He reached the height of virtue, in kingly, 
self-directing' fellowship with his Father's will. Nor is this 
a mere display of the softer virtues, — an exhibition of the 
feminine graces, as we sometimes call them. Do not think 
of our Lord as strong only in the tender and yielding traits. 
Only try to live for a single day in imitation of his goodness, 
and see whether it does not tax your manliest powers, and 
call into exercise all the strongest, sturdiest virtues of which 
you are possessor. The preciousness of his life and of his 
sufferings lies for us in this, that he was the full-orbed, per- 
fect man, in absolute fellowship of spirit with the holy will 
of God. 

When they had bound him they led him off to Annas 
and Caiaphas, — priestly men, who had no eyes for his spir- 
itual beauty, or for any high truth whatever. Caiaphas had 
already counselled the Jews that it was expedient that one 
man should die for the people ; by which he meant that they 
should throw Jesus overboard, give him up to the Romans, 
— thereby to curry favor with their foreign masters and pre- 
" serve their own political existence. Poor blind priest, he 
was bitterly wrong ! It was true that Jesus should die for 
the people, but in no such way as that. The deep-seeing 
John interpreted that he should indeed die for the nation, 
and not for that nation only, but that he might also gather 
together into one the children of God that were scattered 
abroad. Not by being separated from men and set over 
against them was Jesus to save them, but by being one with 
them, by drawing them, by gathering them unto himself. 
" I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
me," — not by a death that could mean nothing to them, 
but by one that would bring them to know the fellowship 
of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, 
was he to become their Saviour. Caiaphas would make 
him a Jonah, thrown into the sea to save the shipload; 



424 CHRIST BETRAYED. [Fourth Quarter. 

he himself would be a Moses, Captain of deliverance to the 
people whom he led. We are fully saved when we are like 
Jesus, and not till then. Take him for Saviour, seek his 
holy mind, and let him transform you into his own image : 
thus will he see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. 



iLestfon IX. jftofoember 29. 



CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. 

John xix: 1-16. 
By Rev. F. CLATWORTHY, D. D., Adrian, Mich. 

EVERY reader of the narrative of Christ's trial, whether 
in John or in the parallel passages of the Synoptic 
Gospels, must be amazed and shocked at the cruel rapidity 
and the awful play of passion with which events succeed one 
another during the fateful hours of crucifixion day. Mock- 
eries of justice and refinements of torture are made to follow 
each other with breathless and heartless haste. Faster and 
faster, thicker and thicker, gather the clouds around that 
devoted head. Surely the prophecies are here fulfilled : the 
dumb Lamb is pitilessly hurried to the slaughter. 

The priests, officers, and people had already, with strange 
accord, pronounced him guilty, they hardly knew of what. 
The charges were vague, witnesses were not agreed : but in 
bitter denunciation of the Holy and the Just there seemed 
but one mind and voice. From the whole Jewish multitude, 
gathered out of every nation, there is no record of a word 
lifted in defence of the innocent sufferer or in sympathy 
with him. Truly the Lord trod the winepress alone, and 
of the people there were none with him. 

The closing incidents of the trial before Pilate are repre- 
sentative of the whole sad history of that eventful day. 
Jesus had come back from Herod " arrayed in a gorgeous 






426 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. [Fourth Quarter. 

robe." It was evidence of the king's contemptuous mock- 
ery and of the fact that he could bring again -t Jesus no 
criminal indictment. This latter confirmed Pilate in the 
conviction, previously expressed, that the prisoner was 
guiltless. The conviction was strengthened, almost at the 
same moment, by an impressive warning from his wife. 
Chief priests and elders, however, would listen to no propo- 
sition of release. Incited by them, the multitude vocifer- 
ously demand that the governor shall exercise his " passover 
clemency " toward Barabbas instead of Jesus. 

Such is the intermingling and shifting of personalities and 
incidents which we find in this scripture that it will be well 
to group our thoughts under a few general heads : 1. Pilate. 
2. Priests and the Priest-ridden. 3. The Sinless Sufferer. 

PILATE. 

In the opening verse of the narrative we find that the 
guilty hesitancy of the Roman governor is beginning to bear 
fruit. He " took Jesus and scourged him." Possessed of 
strong impulses toward justice, he had yet played with con- 
science and faltered in the discharge of duty. Mark an 
important lesson. To parley with wrong is to give it ad- 
vantage. By Pilate's own confession the power to deliver 
Jesus to death or from death was in his hands. Repeatedly 
had he declared that he found no crime in him, and on each 
occasion he had sought to release him. In the shocking re- 
cital of relentless persecution it is refreshing to find these 
glimmers of pity from a Gentile. Amid the Babel of voices 
on that dreadful morning, none save those of the governor 
and his wife had in them any suggestion of good-will to the 
Accused. At the bars of Annas and Caiaphas there had 
been nought but pitiless condemnation. Before the great 
council there were heard only threats of death. Herod and 
his soldiers had indulged in cruel mockeries. At the tribu- 



Lesson IX] CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. 427 

nal of Pilate alone was there discovered the absence of malice 
toward the prisoner. With him, too, the final disposition of 
the prisoner must rest. What a moment ! What an oppor- 
tunity to do good in doing right ! Pilate sits on the " stately 
beuia." The accusers, and also the accused, whom he had 
twice declared guiltless, are before him. If he would be 
innocent of the blood of that just man, now is the time to 
speak and act. Why does he not release Jesus at once, 
and, if needful, order his trusty soldiers to disperse the inso- 
lent mob ? Many very fruitful lines of thought open here, 
which can hardly be more than suggested. 

There was no doubt something to Pilate marvellously 
strange and deeply impressive about this accused one at 
his bar. He was no ordinary culprit, if culprit at all. 
His examination had greatly disturbed the mind and con- 
science of the judge. What could he think about the 
kingdom " not of this world," — a kingdom of truth ? He 
would fain know what truth was, yet feared to know ; ask- 
ing, but not waiting for an answer. There was a certain 
superstitious dread of consequence, quite aside from political 
fear, should he yield to the " ferocious cry for the cross." 
He knew the right ; he felt moral obligation to do it. Had 
the impulse of the moment been given full play, Jesus would 
have gone free ; but the impulse was weakened and ren- 
dered inoperative by his own moral condition and political 
environment. 

The governor's record among the Jewish people was un- 
savory. In his treatment of them he had been not only 
impolitic but unjust. They had good grounds of complaint 
against him, and their murmurings had already reached 
the ears of the emperor. Pilate was afraid of them. While 
trying to assert itself, conscience made him a coward. The 
scourging was evidently allowed as a measure of compro- 
mise. In this also there was neither justice nor good policy. 



428 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. [Fourth Quarter. 

To compromise with wrong is itself a wrong, and usually 
leads to larger evil and deeper guilt. 

" Behold the man ! " was only the summons to a more 
vehement cry for the cross. Pilate was at his wits' end. 
" Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him," 
was in part an utterance of despair, — a futile attempt to 
shift responsibility. The wily priests see his dilemma. They 
asked not compromise but unconditional surrender. With a 
new charge they make him the " more afraid." That this 
meek and suffering man should have styled himself a son of 
the gods, — for so' the charge was probably interpreted, — 
seemed strange indeed. What could it mean ? The Lord's 
majestic bearing, his quiet, dignified endurance of indignities 
worse than death, Claudia's dream, these words about a king- 
dom not of this world, — all now brought increased alarm ; 
while another interview with the accused excites him still 
more. Awe of the sufferer and fear of the priests play upon 
Pilate alternately. Crowds 'closely watch the wretched man, 
and with the first sign of a rising resolution to decree justice, 
make their final and successful shout, " If thou let this man 
go, thou art not Caesar's friend ." 

The trembling governor can stand no more. Thirst for 
office, and the desire to retain it when once secured, could 
exert then, as now, a most pernicious influence. The Eoman 
emperors and the Roman senate cared but little for the real 
welfare of the provinces which they governed, while restless- 
ness and insurrections among a tributary people were apt to 
raise presumptions against the competency or judgment of 
the governor. Politicians weighed their prospects in the first 
century as they weigh them in the nineteenth. The effects 
of popular movements and prejudices were as carefully calcu- 
lated in the petty court at Caesarea as now in the larger 
political circles of Washington or London. 

The people even in that day had a power, though it was 



Lesson IX.] CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. 429 

not the power of the ballot. When Pilate was required to 
balance his own worldly interests against adherence to jus- 
tice and truth, he preferred his interests. The friendship of 
Csesar was more to him than the approbation of conscience 
and of God. Could he have saved Jesus without any sac- 
rifice of self, he would doubtless have done so. There was 
the disposition to do it, and for this Pilate seems to have 
taken some credit to himself. We cannot allow his claim. 
The washing of his hands, as recorded by Matthew, and the 
declaration, even at the very last, that he was " innocent of 
the blood of that just person," do but confirm his guilt. 
Poor, deluded man ! He was in the power and thraldom 
of sin, and sin had blinded his eyes. Ah ! not with water 
can we wash away the stain of our complicity with evil. 

From the lips of the Exalted One whom Pilate was judg- 
ing there had fallen the words, " He that loseth his life for 
my sake shall find it." Paul could suffer the loss of all 
things, that he might win Christ ; he counted not his life 
dear unto him. With Pilate it was not so. He put self 
first, and in seeking to save his life lost it. History has 
its revenges. Soon after this trial Pilate was banished, and 
according to tradition, his banishment was speedily followed 
by a self-inflicted death. Swiss peasants in the vicinity of 
Lake Lucerne will tell you a weird story about his ghostly 
form appearing often on Mount Pilatus, and there vainly 
attempting to wash away its guilt. Well may we fear that 
the truth is sadder than this fiction. 

THE PRIESTS AND THE PRIEST-RIDDEN. 

It is probable that Caiaphas, together with members of 
the Sanhedrim and a large company of resident priests, ap- 
peared in person before Pilate to press the charges against 
Jesus. 

What a sight ! Custodians of the temple of God, leaders 



4 30 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. [Fourth Quarter. 

in the religions affairs of the nation, inciting the Jewish peo- 
ple in a wild cry for the blood of their Messiah ! 

That the priests were insincere admits of no doubt. Their 
charges changed with the necessities of the moment, or what 
they conceived to be the varying moods of Pilate. Because 
they cared little for truth or fairness, they were bent on 
compassing the death of One who walked not with them. 
Jesus knew them well. " Ye hypocrites ! " had been his 
form of address to them more than once. Like priest, like 
people. " Only a few days before, these multitudes had hailed 
Jesus as rightful heir to David's throne. Now they will 
nail him to the cross, because their ecclesiastical authorities 

desire it. 

It is reported that Bonaparte once, when applauded by 
the Parisians, said to a friend sitting in his carriage, " Trust 
not the people ; to-morrow they may send me to the guil- 
lotine." How evident is it that a sudden and remarkable 
change had taken place in the attitude of the masses at 
Jerusalem toward Jesus. It can be explained in no other 
way than that the priests had shown their hand, and that 
the people blindly followed. The priests cry " Blasphemy ! " 
"Sedition!" "He ought to die!" "Crucify him!" and, parrot- 
like, the crowds repeat the words. 

The events which led up to the scourging and the delivery 
of Christ to be'crucified, show plainly that the common peo- 
ple were unreasoning dupes of the men in robes. The Jewish 
priesthood was ordained of God, but it had miserably fallen 
away from the divine purpose of its institution. The priests 
had become little more than a band of theological bigots 
and of political tyrants so far as they had any control or in- 
fluence in the state. The priests venomously hated Christ 
because he taught doctrines too deep for them to teach. His 
wisdom had been gotten elsewhere than in the schools of 
the rabbis. He was out of accord with the traditions of the 



Lesson IX] CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. 431 

elders ; he was not keeping step with their orthodoxy. Or- 
thodoxy was of course what they accepted. Of all the things 
which a degenerate priesthood cannot and will not tolerate, 
the most obnoxious is a popular doctrine which they do not 
teach, and therefore do not authorize. Pilate saw through 
their flimsy pretence. " He knew that for envy they had 
delivered him." 

The hypocrites ! One would fancy these priests to be the 
jealous guardians of the peace of the state. They charge 
Jesus with being a breeder of tumult. For this they would 
slay him. Yet when it suits their purpose they request the 
pardon of a noted criminal who has participated in sedition 
and committed murder. One would suppose them the loyal 
champions of the rights of the emperor. They accuse Jesus 
of forbidding tribute to Caesar, and bring the stunning charge 
against the governor that if he sets Jesus free he is not 
Caesar's friend. Yet it is notorious that they hated Caesar, 
and would have done anything that they safely could to 
throw off the Eoman yoke. Barabbas had stained his hands 
in blood in revolt against Caesar. Yet for this very reason 
he endeared himself to them, and they cry lustily that he 
may be delivered from custody. Their insincerity is so 
transparent that our surprise rises to amazement as we be- 
hold the crowds swayed at their will and blindly following 
them. They were priest-ridden. Woe to the people who 
are thus led to surrender reason and conscience to others, 
whatever their scholarship and however great their preten- 
sions to piety ! 

THE SINLESS SUFFERER. 

We may assume that Jesus was personally a stranger to 
Pilate as he was to Herod. Almost the whole of our Lord's 
ministry had been confined to Galilee. His visits to Judaea 
since he left it, nearly three years before, had been few and 



432 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. [Fourth Quarter. 

brief. That Pilate had heard of him there can be no doubt, 
and the dream and message of Claudia would indicate that 
he had been a subject of conversation in the palace. 

Jesus is now before Pilate as a prisoner, — the Son of God 
on trial for his life at the tribunal of man ! What a scene 
for the painter's brush ! Where is the master-hand that 
shall portray it ; where the imagination that can duly 
grasp even the essential features of a picture so unique and 
awe-inspiring ? What ! Ts he who made all things, and with- 
out whom " was not anything made that was made," is he 
amenable to rules of justice as found on the statute-books 
of Cffisar? Is he subject to censure at the petty bar of 
Pilate ? Nowhere can we find a fuller exhibition of divine 
self-abasement than in that which pictures an accused yet 
innocent and speechless Christ before this contemptible hu- 
man court. He who could have summoned legions of angels 
drinks, without complaint, the cup of bitterness to the dregs. 
He was dumb, not because of sullenness or despair, but be- 
cause the verities of his kingdom were grander than his 
carnal-hearted judges could understand. 

Mark the Man of Sorrows ! In three short verses John 
mentions the scourging and describes the mockeries. But 
what indignities and tortures do these words imply ! The 
Roman flagellation was a merciless infliction, leaving the 
victim often more dead than alive. That in Christ's case it 
was attended with more than the usual barbarity seems clear 
from the heartless mockeries with which it was accompanied. 
The devout mind must dwell with awful solemnity upon 
these jeers and blows. They stand in closest relation to us, 
for the Smitten One " was wounded for our transgressions, 
he was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our 
peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." 

Oh, the wonders of redemption ! He whose voice might 
have made priests and governors to tremble, speaks not a 



Lesson IX.] CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. 433 

word while he gives his back to the smiters. These maddened 
murderers surely did not understand the deep meaning of 
their mockeries. They clothe the Sinless One in derisive 
scarlet, but know not that he who wears it is indeed the 
King of kings and Lord of lords. They plat a crown of 
thorns and press it upon his brow, but the thoughtless, cruel 
persecutors see not the Royalty whose throne is in the 
heavens, and before which they shall by and by stand in 
confusion and shame. They mock him with a reed, and wag 
their heads in merriment. Ah ! deluded ones, that Hand 
holds the sceptre whose power all the nations shall feel ; 
even the mighty Caesar shall bow before it. They spit upon 
him and smite him with their hands while the "common 
hall " rings with their vulgar laughter. " He is weak," they 
say : " he cannot, he dare not, return our blows." Ignorant 
wretches, they do not know that the new pathway of glory 
which he has marked out is one of submissive obedience ! 
Devils had always returned evil for good." Men had habitu- 
ally returned evil for evil. But the dominant principle of the 
new kingdom was to return good for evil. What an illustra- 
tion of his teaching, hardest to understand, does the " Man of 
Sorrows" give us during these awful hours! We are not 
surprised at the governor's exclamation, " Behold the man ! " 
It is not more Christ's meekness under suffering than a 
quiet, innocent dignity traceable in every feature and move- 
ment, that attracts attention. Even the repeated cry for the 
cross could effect no change in his placid face. To our 
cheeks such injustice would bring the crimson, and the re- 
vilings of the wicked would make it difficult for us to hold 
our tongues. That " man " was more than man. . He who 
stood unmoved by scoffs and falsehoods was none other than 
the Son of God, guiltless of every crime alleged against him, 
suffering and dying that he might lift into life eternal a 
perishing world. . Behold the God- man ! 






434 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. [Fourth Quarter. 

Consider, in closing, that the whole scene at Pilate's bar 
was a representative one. In the life of every person to 
whom the Gospel is preached there comes the time when 
decision must be rendered in regard to Christ, — whether he 
is indeed the Son of God. Political, moneyed, social, and other 
interests often seem to conflict with the promptings of duty. 
Whenever, in such cases, self is preferred, and conscience 
is stifled, then has Pilate found an imitator, and Christ 
is delivered to be crucified. In the never-ceasing conflict 
between Christ and the world, no one can be an indifferent 
spectator or stand on neutral ground. He who chooses 
not Christ will, in the end, choose Barabbas. 



ilestfon x. December 6. 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 

John xix: 17-30. 

By Rev. Z. GRENELL, D. D., Deteoit, Mich. 

npHIS planet of ours was made to hold up a cross. Jesus 
-*- was the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world." The crucifixion of the Son of God was not an after- 
thought, it was part of God's original plan. When you 
come to the crucifixion you come to the most significant 
event that ever occurred in this world. 

In studying the life of Jesus it is well to combine the 
writings of the four evangelists. The composite photograph 
illustrates a mental process of great value. Nowhere is such 
a method more fruitful than in the use we may make of the 
several accounts of the crucifixion. But there is also a cer- 
tain advantage in studying one of these accounts alone. The 
composite photograph usually loses in distinctness as much 
as it gains in comprehensiveness. The limits of this dis- 
course, however, compel us to seek the advantage of taking 
John's account by itself. 

The course of events in the passage before us may be traced 
in certain prominent and suggestive phrases occurring at in- 
tervals in the narrative. These six will be noticed : " Bear- 
ing the cross ; " " They crucified him ; " " The King of the 
Jews ;" " They cast lots ; " " His mother ; " " It is finished." 

1. Bearing the cross. How abruptly the cross comes 
upon the scene ! We have heard no sounds of preparation. 



, 



4 30 CHRIST CRUCIFIED. [Fourth Quarter. 

We cannot help thinking that this very cross has been used 
before ; that there are tell-tale holes in it, and dark stains 
upon it, and dried earth clinging to its sharpened end. Prob- 
ably Jesus had never seen a cross before, with his human 
eyes ; and now this foul and cruel thing is thrust upon his 
sight and laid upon his shoulder. 

It has come far to meet him. The cross had its origin in 
the distant East ; Alexander brought it to the West. It had 
been set up by every great city to lift on its rude arms 
peculiarly odious criminals and condemned slaves. Eouie 
brought it to Judtea to terrify the insurrectionary Jew. So 
the cross has journeyed from land to land, getting a mean- 
ing. And now, having made for itself a place in human 
thought and speech as signifying mortal pain and deepest 
disgrace, here it is, ready to inflict its shameful and fatal 
torture upon the innocent Jesus. 

If you will look backward from this point fifteen hundred 
years, directing your eyes toward a certain spot in the desert 
to the south of Palestine, you may see a man making a cross. 
A stake and cross-bar are fitted together, and around them 
is wound the form of a serpent moulded out of brass. It is 
set up upon a hillock in the midst of the camp of Israel, to 
be a miraculous means of cure for the guilty and dying 
people. The story of that singular transaction, put into 
sacred writings and pondered by generations of Israelites, 
was not understood as to its interior meaning until one night 
the Prophet of Galilee explained it to a ruler of the Jews. 

Here on the gospel page we see the Man and the cross 
meeting for the first time. The Man has come from beyond 
the desert of the brazen serpent, stepping from altar to altar : 
now veiled in the rich symbols of tabernacle and temple, 
now moving across historic pages in the garb of many a 
shining type. He has come by way of the manger in Bethle- 
hem, dripping out of the Jordan, moving along the highways 



Lesson X.] CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 437 

and sea-sands of Galilee, across the hills of Samaria, from 
the home in Bethany, through the shadows of Gethsemane, 
out of the presence of the Sanhedrim and Pilate's judgment- 
seat; and here he stands, worn, sad, silent, patient, with red 
drops trickling down his face, and others unseen oozing from 
fresh-made furrows beneath the clothing that covers his 
lacerated back, ready for the cross. And he meekly receives 
it and bears it to the place of execution. 

" Bearing the cross : " what do we mean when we apply 
that expression to ourselves ? What can we mean but the 
acceptance of suffering and shame and death in the name of 
Jesus? To speak, as we sometimes do, of the performance 
of simple duties as cross-bearing, is to belittle a phrase which 
our Saviour has made great. 

2. They crucified him. Bearing his woful burden, bent 
with a weight that rested with crushing gravity upon his 
spirit rather than on his body, Jesus was led out of the city 
gate, and came to the hillock whose rounded top bore the 
semblance of a human skull. There the four Eoman soldiers 
detailed for the purpose laid him supine upon the cross, and 
extended his unresisting form, and drove the nails through 
his open palms and his folded feet. Then they raised the 
burdened cross and settled it in its place with business-like 
stolidity, while the blood dropped down upon them. 

Who crucified him ? Are these soldiers the responsible 
parties ? They are the least responsible of all who were 
immediately concerned, for they had least opportunity for 
choice. Pilate did it. He and the soldiers only? Not so. 
The rulers of the Jews did it. To them Peter brought home 
the charge of murder, with terrible emphasis upon the accus- 
ing " Ye." Does the responsibility end there ? Certainly 
not; all the mad mob that stood before Pilate's hall at 
dawn and shouted " Crucify him," and invoked his blood 
upon themselves and their posterity, were guilty of his 



438 CHRIST CRUCIFIED. [Fourth Quarter. 

death. Nor may we even thus limit the responsibility of 
that enormous crime. Who was there that did not share 
in it ? Was there an absolutely guiltless one in all that as- 
semblage, from sneering priest to weeping women ? Nay, 
more : who of all the sinful race, from Adam down to the 
last man, was not involved in the blame of it ? It was not 
men, but man, that slew the Lord. The guilt the cross pro- 
claims in the intensity of its pains, and for which it provides 
atonement in the outflow of precious blood, is the guilt it 
illustrates. All forms and degrees of sin have their fullest 
and truest expression in this one comprehensive offence, — 
the crucifixion of the Son of God. 

He was not crucified alone. As if to give color to the 
charge that Jesus was an evil-doer, two others, justly 
condemned, were put to death in the same way at the same 
time. But this attempt to stigmatize him was a failure. 
Instead of degrading Jesus, it elevated man. Besides supply- 
ing one of the marks of his messiahship, and besides giving 
occasion for a remarkable display of his saving power upon 
one of the thieves, it illustrated the possibility of a high 
heroism for us all. To be " crucified with Christ " is a thing 
to be prayerfully desired and devoutly suffered by all who 
love him. 

3. The King of the Jews. It is said to have been the 
custom to place above the head of one crucified a writing 
naming the crime for which he was executed. Pilate made 
use of this custom to vent his spite against the Jews. With 
his own hand he prepared an inscription and had it fastened 
to the cross. 

This writing would excite special curiosity. What crime 
would Pilate charge upon this man ? Jesus had been con- 
demned by the Sanhedrim as a blasphemer. Before Pilate 
the charge was sedition. But the governor, having privately 
examined him, declared him innocent of all that was charged 



Lesson X.] CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 439 

against him. What, then, will he write above him on the 
cross-? Many of the Jews came to see. And they found 
there no accusation, only a proclamation : " Jesus of Naza- 
reth, the King of the Jews." Pilate was mocking them. 
They saw the point and felt the sting of it. But they 
thought it might he changed, so the chief priests came to 
Pilate with the request that the writing might be amended 
so as to read, " Jesus of Nazareth, who said he was King 
of the Jews." This would take the edge off the official 
sneer. But Pilate was in no mood to grant their request. 
He had already yielded too much. Against the current of 
his superstitious fears, and against his sense of justice, and 
despite his studious and repeated efforts to secure the release 
of the accused, he had been forced by a manufactured popular 
clamor to give sentence against an innocent man. He will 
bend no further. With a surly assertion of independence 
which was lamentably late, he dismissed the priests. The 
writing shall stand. " What I have written, I have writ- 
ten." Emphasize the capital / both times, and you will 
catch the spirit of Pilate's self assertion, — absurdly con- 
sequential, since .it was so long coming and since it grounded 
itself on so small a matter. 

But Pilate wrote better than he knew. Jesus was king of 
the Jews by divine appointment and as heir of the royal 
house of David. The Providence which evokes praises even 
from men's wrath was behind Pilate's brain and hand. As 
Caiaphas, the highest religious official in the land, uncon- 
sciously announced the messiahship of Jesus, so did Pilate, 
the highest civil authority, declare his kingship. Pilate's 
sneer, like the mock homage of the soldiers, was the procla- 
mation of sublime truth. Solemn eyes look through the 
grinning mask. 

Thrice was the title written, — in Hebrew, in Greek, and in 
Latin. Probably the intention was to address the largest 



440 CHRIST CRUCIFIED. [Fourth Quarter. 

number of readers ; but here again we discover a deeper 
intention than that of the writer. Hebrew was then in its 
decay ; Greek was at that time the most universal language ; 
but Latin was the rising speech, destined to dominate in 
the world's literature, as Roman arms had conquered the 
world's kingdoms. Thus Pilate's writing proclaimed the 
kingship of Jesus across all the latitudes of time. 

Nor is this all. Hebrew was the speech of the one people 
who had had a specifically religious training ; its vocabulary 
was saturated with religious ideas. Greek was the speech of 
the people who were foremost in the domains of intellectual 
philosophy. Latin was the speech of the people who laid the 
foundations- of civil jurisprudence for all the after-civiliza- 
tions. Thus the writing on the cross was made in the 
specific languages of religion, philosophy, and law ; and as 
Jesus was declared king in these three languages, there was 
an intimation that his doctrine was destined to be the mas- 
ter religion, the master philosophy, and the master law of the 
world. The world will be right in its worship, its wisdom, 
and its social adjustments when the crucified Jesus is ac- 
knowledged universal Lord. 

4. They cast lots. By custom the clothing of Jesus 
became the property of the soldiers who executed him. He 
who clothed our shamefaced parents was disrobed when he 
made expiation for their sins and ours. Probably his cloth- 
ing was that of the common man of the time, — an outer 
garment, or cloak, reaching from the neck to the ankles ; an 
under-garment, or coat, worn next the skin, sleeveless, and 
ending at the knees; a girdle, an important and often 
elaborate article of dress, wound about the waist and knot- 
ted in front or at the side ; and sandals for the feet. 

In making the division the soldiers came to the tunic, and 
discovered that it was seamless. It could not be ripped, as 
probably the cloak had been. To rend it would be to destroy 



Lksson X.] CHHIST CRUCIFIED. 441 

it. It was agreed, therefore, to cast lots for it. And so at 
the foot of the cross where Jesus suffers we have the 
spectacle of the soldiers shaking the dice in an inverted 
helmet, and casting them in turn to see who shall have the 
coveted garment. What more striking illustration can we 
find of the hard and pitiless spirit of the gamester ? It is 
the same in all times and places. The vice of gambling 
breeds a fierce eagerness for sudden gain that deadens the 
natural sympathies of those who indulge it. 

It has been said that the prediction in the Twenty-second 
Psalm, . which, was thus exactly fulfilled, shows us that 
prophecy did not disdain to give us, even in unimportant 
matters, marks by which the dying Jesus might be identified 
as the Messiah. It may be so. But was this an unimpor- 
tant matter ? There is peculiar significance in the disposi- 
tion thus made of the clothing of our Lord, It assures us 
that these garments were never resumed by him. Probably 
the soldiers appropriated them to their own personal use, and 
they were worn out in the barracks, the broil, the march, the 
battle. When the naked form was taken down from the 
cross and prepared for burial, it was wrapped in clean linen ; 
when the Lord had risen, the linen cloths were found in the 
tomb. But immediately after his resurrection he was seen 
by the Magdalene, not naked, but clothed ; for she thought 
he was the gardener going early . to his work. Whence 
came the clothing in which the Lord was seen robed after 
his resurrection? Let those answer who do not believe that 
the body of the risen Saviour was the " spiritual body " of 
which Paul writes. 

5. His m.other. Not far from the cross is a tearful group, 
composed mainly of the women who have followed the 
Master in his last journey from Galilee. In this company 
are Mary- the mother of Jesus, and John, "the disciple whom 
Jesus loved." .To. these, two the divine Sufferer speaks, 



442 CHRIST CRUCIFIED. [Fourth Quarter. 

" making his will," as some one has said. In the midst of 
his bodily pains and his greater anguish of soul his human 
affection asserts itself and he makes provision for his depend- 
ent, probably widowed, mother. In the briefest words he 
indicates his desire that henceforth Mary and John shall be 
to each other as mother and son. They understood and 
obeyed ; " and from that hour the disciple took her unto his 
own home." 

Thus did our Lord care for the woman who bore him, — an 
example that should be pressed upon the attention of the 
young, — and thus did he at the same time honor the affec- 
tionate steadfastness of the one disciple who stood nearest 
to him in the hour of his suffering. These lessons are the 
more impressive that they are framed into the supreme 
anguish and grief of the cross. But while Jesus thus exem- 
plifies a son's fidelity in the most affecting circumstances, we 
do not find here or elsewhere in the inspired records any 
uTOiind for that hi^h elevation of the mother of Jesus in the 
faith and worship of men to which the Church of Home 
would lift her. The words of Luke xi. 27, 28, in which our 
Lord himself anticipated and gave warning against mariola- 
try, should not be forgotten. 

6. It is finished. The hours pass. At nine o'clock in 
the morning Jesus was lifted up; at three o'clock in the 
afternoon he expired. Midway between these two points of 
time the darkness came upon the land and remained until 
Jesus had breathed his last. Through these hours the tokens 
of physical suffering are as distinctly evident as those of 
the distress of his spirit. Feverish conditions follow the 
effusion of blood, and we hear the exclamation, " I thirst ! " 
The pains of Jesus are not diminished by his divine power. 
He is exposed to all that the most sensitive frame can suffer. 
Still, he graciously accepts a tribute of pity. Though he 
refused the draught offered him at first to blunt his senses, 



Lesson X] CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 443 

he receives the slight refreshment lifted to his lips upon a 
sponge that has been dipped in the sour wine placed near 
for the soldiers' use. Thus does our dying Lord declare the 
reality of his bodily sufferings, and his willingness to accept 
the compassion of men. 

Then the end came. Jesus recognized its approach, and 
gathered up his energies for the last word of all, — one of the 
two " loud " voices from the cross, " It is finished." It was 
a shout of triumph, proclaiming not only the end of his 
sufferings, but more than that, — the accomplishment of all 
that the types had pictured and all that the prophets had 
spoken up to this crowning point in the plan of God for 
bringing many sons unto glory. 



tlestton XL December 13. 



CHRIST RISEJNV 

John xx : 1-18. 
By Rev. CHARLES A. REESE, Rutland, Vt. 

X LTHOUGH Mary Magdalene left her home while it 
1\ was y e t dark, the sun was shining with Oriental 
splendor when the inspection of the tomb was made. Natu- 
ral vision was not obscured by darkness. The conclusion 
of the witnesses as to both the death and the resurrection of 
the Lord was reached in daylight. No cabinet or quickly 
closing doors or shaded lamps accompany the evidence. 
The first day had received the touch which made it forever 
the calmest, brightest day in each revolving circle of seven 
days. 

The conditions of the resurrection, like all life, are veiled 
in mystery ; but as to the fact itself, we have as good evi- 
dence as history affords for any event. The Apostle John 
gives us the account from his own standpoint. The follow- 
ers of Jesus, both men and women, believed his death real 
and final. This was their fixed conviction on that memor- 
able morning. The possibility of his having arisen had not 
entered their minds. 

John records for us the steps by which they all came to 
the opposite conclusion. He traces particularly the progress 
of faith in Peter, for whom Jesus especially prayed ; in John, 
whom Jesus especially loved ; in Mary, whom Jesus espe- 



Lesson XL] CHRIST RISEN. 445 

cially befriended ; in Thomas, who resolutely doubted ; -and, 
finally, in the five others who knew Jesus as he came fresh 
from the tomb, when he appeared most like an ordinary 
man. We are concerned with the first three. 

1. The early visit. During the seventh day Love obeyed 
the sabbath law. The graves of loved ones are stumbling- 
blocks if they call from worship of the living God at the 
appointed time. Far too much work and pleasure are 
glossed with a thin wash of necessity and sentimentality, 
and performed upon the Christian sabbath. The Pilgrims 
would not disembark upon the Lord's Day ; the disciples did 
not visit the tomb upon their sabbath. 

But at last love was free to act. Early on the first day 
of the week Mary Magdalene, probably with other women, 
hastened to the sepulchre. Her surprise that the stone was 
rolled away was preliminary to a dreadful fear. The genu- 
ineness of the story is shown by the artlessness of the nar- 
rator, who notes Mary's natural but untrue explanation of 
the empty tomb : " They have taken away the Lord out of 
the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him." 
She had no thought of his resurrection. And does not the 
feverish anxiety of this age lest some hostile hand should 
sweep Christianity from the world reveal Mary's dim con- 
ception of the power and majesty of Jesus ? For those few 
moments, so unequalled in history, Mary may be excused 
for fearing ; but fear at what the enemies of Christ can do 
is to-day neither reasonable nor excusable. All doubt as 
to the final issue of the moral conflict implies a half belief 
that men took the Lord from the sepulchre. 

Peter and John fear too. They run, as Mary had done, re- 
gardless of appearances. If Peter thinks of his late denial, it 
does not retard his course. He runs as he always acts, — im- 
pulsively and with all his might. Both start with prompt- 
ness, celerity, and energy. The apostles are minute-men. 



446 CHRIST RISEN. [Fourth Quarter. 

2. The examination and testimony of the tomb. Brushing 
the dew from the garden shrubs and anticipating the early- 
sunbeams, these intensely earnest men approach the sepul- 
chre. Contrary to what we should expect, the contemplative 
John outruns the fiery Peter. But as John arrives before 
the door of the silent chamber, he does not enter. With 
all his physical energy, reason rules his feet. His zeal, his 
youthful strength, are crowned with reverence for what is 
divine. Eeverence too seldom accompanies activity. Kev- 
erence — the fear of the Lord — is the beginning of wisdom. 

The opposite is seen in Peter, who is bold, ardent, impa- 
tient of delay. • He makes no pause, but immediately enters 
the holy place. His lack of awe in entering is pardonable, be- 
cause of the service he did while there for all mankind. He 
came to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the evidence. 
John uses three words to describe the examination of the 
tomb and its contents. He gives Peter the credit for mak- 
ing the boldest, closest scrutiny. Careful inspection could 
not be more emphatically indicated. They mentally photo- 
graphed the interior. John marked the linen cloths lying, 
with no body enwrapped. Peter with his own strong vision 
saw these cloths in the same strange state, and the napkin 
that was about the Lord's head folded, and laid in a place 
by itself. John is particular to call them linen band- 
ages, because such was the material provided by Joseph of 
Arimathea. 

The order is, first, data; second, a theory which shall 
include all the given facts. If the tomb had not been 
scrutinized by witnesses before the resurrection was an- 
nounced, before their minds were beginning to believe in 
it, we should feel that a link was lacking, and wish that 
the apostles had proceeded more slowly. The state of the 
tomb upon that morning is the first thing we wish to 
know; we then seek a fact that will explain it. 



Lesson XL] CHEIST RISEN. 447 

For these minute details we are indebted to Peter and 
John. They saw the empty tomb and the condition of its 
contents. They were two of the three apostles who had 
been most intimate with the Lord, and knew him better 
than any other persons in the world. Their judgment had 
been sharpened by their Teacher, and they had formed care- 
ful conclusions again and again upon things material and 
things spiritual. They could not be deceived. 

3. The new faith. The men saw that the body had not 
been removed by stealth or in haste, — that in fact it had 
not been removed at all. For why should a lifeless body be 
stripped of its grave-clothes if either foe or friend were re- 
moving it ? It was a critical moment. The Holy Spirit 
was showing them the things of Christ. John says he saw 
and believed, speaking only of himself because belief is a 
personal matter. Peter may 'have believed as strongly as 
he, but to say " I believe," as John practically does, is more 
convincing than to tell what others believe. " I saw and be- 
lieved," is the goal to which John's entire Gospel is intended 
to lead. In it he tells how men saw Jesus and believed in 
him. He loves to dwell upon these acts as the two hinges 
to the door of the kingdom. At last he himself saw and 
believed what he had never believed before ; and he relates 
with grateful and never-to-be-obliterated memory how that 
very moment he was born into the new truth and the new 
life. He perceived, with a vision which persecutions could 
not bedim or the Apocalypse make brighter, that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, we may 
have life through his name. 

In this conclusion Peter was probably behind John, though 
he entered the sepulchre first, and was most active in in- 
specting its interior. Cautious, reflecting minds like John's 
are the spiritual leaders of the Church. Activity and push 
are not all that Christ's cause needs. Modern impetuosity 



448 CHRIST RISEN. [Fourth Quarter. 

and speed in compassing results often cause the so-called 
earnest ones to overlook hidden treasure. 

" For fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 

They rush in, but they come out no wiser. It is not enough 
in any pursuit merely to " get there." Tn this day of rapid 
thinking and much speaking, of haste and ambition for reli- 
gious ends, let us remember that it is not by bodily or by 
any other exercise, except that of the spirit working with the 
truth, that Christ is discerned and glorified. As Peter un- 
consciously influenced John to enter the tomb, so when there 
Peter needed John's penetration as an aid to faith. 

At this point John adds : " For as yet they knew not 
the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead." Whatever 
self-reproach he felt because of his slowness to believe the 
prophecies, it seems to have been a source of satisfaction to 
him that this very sin might render his testimony worth 
the more to the world. For it was not a preconceived idea 
that begot the faith they now held ; but the proof that Christ 
was again alive led them to see for the first time the picture 
of the risen Messiah drawn imperishable in the Scriptures. 

This confutes forever the theory that Peter and John saw 
what their minds, full of vagaries and fancies, were prepared 
to see. They came to the tomb with no expectation of any- 
thing but to be met by wicked men, with no "perhaps" or 
" may be " in mind, in ignorance of the divine plan and in 
dread of new human cruelties ; but the now discovered fact 
that Christ was already Lord of death filled them with joy 
and illuminated the Scriptures for them. How old pas- 
sages of the Word of God seemed to be voices as of an army 
of shining angels celebrating the morning of all mornings 1 
How the sun, which had been darkened only a few hours 
before, seemed again to pale beside the heaven-accredited 
Light of the world ! 



Lesson XL] CHRIST RISEN. 449 

What are they to do now ? Shall they simply stand by 
the despoiled sepulchre, proclaim the news, and mock the dis- 
concerted rulers? Shall they call the disheartened apostles 
and disciples ? Shall they seek the Lord and put him before 
the public ? No ; Christ, who is Master of death, is also 
Master of the Church, of the world, and of history. They 
would await his own procedure ; and so they " went away 
again unto their own home." 

How fortunate that the first place to which the news was 
carried was " home " ! Where does the resurrection mean so 
much as there ? Where else do so many flowers of hope and 
trust blossom about the thought of the resurrection ? Sweet 
and inspiring as is the conception of immortality, it is better 
adapted to the study than to the household. Only the doc- 
trine of the resurrection will satisfy the yearnings of hus- 
band and wife, of father, mother, children, for light concerning 
the dead. It warrants expectation that recognition and com- 
munion will follow death, and that departed Christian friends 
will not be essentially different from what they were on earth. 
No home is complete without Him who rose from the dead. 

4. The apparition of the angels. The picture of Mary, 
who soon followed Peter and John back to the sepulchre, 
standing in tears, peering into the tomb, is a picture of 
grief very old yet very new. So Jacob wept for Each el ; so 
Joseph wept for Jacob ; so the confused, bereft, disconsolate 
ones to day face the blank wall which death rears. Mary 
has lost her wonderful Eescuer, her Adviser, her Friend, who 
had raised up friends and respect in her behalf. Mystery 
is now added to that great loss. Why is she denied the 
simple but inestimable privilege of seeing his peaceful face 
once more, and of performing for him the last rites ? Yet, 
looking into the sepulchre, Mary saw in her dire need what 
Peter and John did not see, — two angels, at appointed places, 
where Jesus had lain. The dispensation of divine light is 

29 



450 CHRIST RISEN. [Fourth Quarter. 

different to different minds. The two apostles did not need 
the angelic appearance ; they gained their comfort by an act 
of direct faith. Mary received hers piecemeal, through a 
more striking and mysterious but less direct ministry. The 
Lord adapts himself to the strength of one and to the weak- 
ness of another, yet leaves heavenly influences behind him 
everywhere. 

Hark, the angels speak ! " Why weepest thou ? " Angels 
are sympathetic, but sympathy alone is not sufficient for 
such an hour. How little angelic sympathy seemed to do 
now ! Men need not wonder if their words do not avail for 
comfort in bereavement. Advancing a little to the next 
scene, we hear again, " Why weepest thou ? " this time spoken 
by the Lord himself. fellow-man, gazing at the sepulchre 
of buried friends, with no spiritual hunger and with no in- 
sight into the facts which Jesus' tomb presents, you cannot 
but weep! But if faith leads you to look within Christ's 
sepulchre and to view the subject of death according to 
God's thought of it, " Why weepest thou ? " 

5. The manifestation of Jesus to Mary. Deep feeling of 
bereavement excludes from Mary's mind for the time every 
other thought and perception. She knew not Jesus, because 
she was thinking only of her loss. Moreover, the resurrec- 
tion was not conceived of ; and, besides, the Lord had under- 
gone a change, at least in the aspect of his body. 

But the soul of Jesus was unaltered, — his spirit, which 
had taught them the Scriptures, beamed through his eyes and 
spoken through his lips, prayed for them and loved them, 
and weighted for them with precious truth many and many 
a word. This is the same after his death and resurrection as 
before. " Mary," said the Lord ; " Ptabboni," answered Mary. 
Scarcely anything else reveals identity like the human voice. 
This was a step nearer a demonstration of the resurrection 
than the cerements and the emptiness of the sepulchre. In 



Lesson XI.] CHRIST RISEN. 451 

an instant, in the presence of Christ, Mary's eyes are opened, 
and grief and despair flee away. Her nature, so large and 
deep that once seven demons could use it, which just now 
felt a sevenfold sorrow, overflows with joy sevenfold great. 
In her ignorance and stony grief she had turned her back 
upon the Lord ; now, in the light of his glorious life, she 
throws herself at his feet. 

6. The new instruction. What mind would have invented 
the conclusion of this story ! The Lord himself is as calm 
and as superior to his great triumph as when the ruler's 
daughter came to life at his touch, or Lazarus arose at his 
call. Mary believes that it is the Lord, but the very ardor of 
her love leads her to seek every proof. She wishes to assure 
herself through the sense of touch and by renewing their 
former friendship and communion on the earthly plane. In 
refusing this, Jesus assumes a new relation. " Touch me 
not ; for I am not yet ascended to my Father." As if he 
had said : Do not rest your new faith upon my corporeal 
life, but upon that life which will soon be consummated with 
my Father. There I shall receive your love and we will 
resume our fellowship. 

Here is a lesson for all. When faith has won victory on 
its own high ground, why should we crave the lower testi- 
mony of the senses and a smaller promise ? Why should 
"they that have not seen and yet have believed," wish 
to exchange places with Thomas, who was offered the Lord's 
hands and side to help him to faith ? Mary had already 
made a good beginning in faith, and therefore Christ would 
not allow her to touch him physically. He says by his pro- 
hibition : Having taken a few steps by faith, walk no more 
by sight. One touch through the Holy Ghost is worth far 
more than any bodily presence. 

Christ's new way of meeting his disciples only makes them 
nearer and dearer to him than before. He calls them " my 



452 CHKIST RISEN. [Fourth Quarter. 

brethren," — a term of higher honor than he had used hith- 
erto. It promises the same sonship to God as his, and the 
same fatherhood in God that he enjoyed. Henceforth they 
are brethren of Death's Conqueror and sons of Christ's Father 
and Christ's God. Life and revelation can rise no higher. 

A new command secures the publication of this message : 
Go to my brethren and tell them I am risen. If faith grows 
feeble amid the distractions of the world, Mary and all who 
take the same message will find in the act of obedience as 
well as in the communication itself the confirming proof that 
they are not deceived. An empty mind will doubt; aim- 
less feet will wander. What the Lord has spoken to us is 
reassurance that we have seen him. 

Let others find satisfaction for the historic faculty in 
contemplating the deeds of Alexander, Ctesar, or Napoleon ; 
here is a record more trustworthy than theirs. Let infidels 
judge the Church by some poor section of it, and pronounce 
it a merely human organization ; we look at the life of the 
whole through the centuries, and declare its faith that Christ 
rose from the dead to be the only key to its grand history. 
Explain if you can the labors of the apostles as the works 
of deluded men or impostors ; we cannot insult our reason by 
so believing. The fact of the resurrection is the only consid- 
eration able to account for their labors and sacrifices. 



Iles&on XII. December 20. 



THE RISEN CHRIST AND HIS 
DISCIPLES. 

John xxi: I—I4. 
By Rev. Professor J. M. STIFLER, D.D., Upland, Pa. 

THE last chapter of the Gospel of John is an appendix, 
and not a supplement. The story of Jesus' life, death, 
and resurrection closed somewhat hurriedly with the pre- 
ceding chapter. But now what about the future? What 
about the disciples' work for the world ? This chapter 
answers. The relation between the Gospel of John and this 
appendix is the same as that between Luke's Gospel and his 
book of the Acts. The latter is the sequel of the former. 
Luke's Gospel related what Jesus " began to do and teach." 
The Acts show how Jesus carried on his work. Only, the 
Acts is a history of work done after the resurrection ; the 
chapter before us is rather a prophecy, with its dimmer 
outlines. 

Hence this twenty-first chapter is concerned about work, 
and about the disciples' future until Jesus comes again. He 
meets them in their toil, gives the chief apostle his office, 
" feed my sheep," and as a last act the story shows Jesus 
leading, whither we are not told, while the disciples are fol- 
lowing. It is quite possible, too, that John's last statement, 
" even the world itself could not contain the books " if a 
full record of Jesus' deeds were written, refers to his en- 
throned history, and is not an inept repetition of his previous 



454 CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter 

declaration that " many other signs truly did Jesus which 
are not written in this book." The latter statement closes 
the history of his career while on earth ; the former sums up 
what had been done after the ascension to the time when 
John wrote, and is the book of Acts in a nutshell. 

John records three official appearances of the Lord, the 
one to Mary being personal. In the first, Jesus proves the 
reality of his resurrection, and commissions his disciples ; 
in the second, he rescues the doubter ; and in this third he 
does a miracle, which, as they subsequently reflected upon 
it, would encourage and guide them in leading men to him- 
self. There are three points : 1. Jesus guides the disciples 
in their work. 2. Jesus is revealed to the disciples in their 
work. 3. Jesus eats with the disciples after their work. 

1. Jesus guides tin disciples in their work. The work was 
commonplace,— fishing; the story is simple, but the feel- 
ings of the actors must have been profound. The feast at 
Jerusalem is over. The disciples have made the journey of 
a long week's travel back to Galilee. It is not the Galilee 
of a few former months. There is no assembling of crowds 
for instruction, no miracles of mercy, no loved leader to keep 
the disciples in one body. Four are lacking on this fishing- 
excursion. He has been seen alive after his passion, but 
not here in Galilee ; it was away in Jerusalem. Galilee 
doubtless thinks that Jesus is no more. The atmosphere 
surrounding the eleven is oppressive ; they are lonesome, 
idle, restless. The active spirit of Peter must find something 
to do. He proposes to go a fishing, and six more of them 
accompany him. Success does not attend their effort. Per- 
haps, in the mood of suspense and doubt affecting them, they 
did not ply their craft skilfully. At any rate, " that night 
they caught nothing." In the light of the early morning 
a stranger, as they supposed, is seen standing on the shore. 
They note but do not know him. At last he hails them, 



Lesson XII.] CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. 455 

— " Children, have yon any meat ? " They answer, " No," — 
no meat, despite their toil. And this little negative is the 
only word addressed to him in this entire event. He now 
directs them where to cast the net. They obey, and fish in 
abundance are enclosed in the net. 

But the story must be looked at once more, for the story 
itself is the lesson. There is a minute particularity about 
it. We are told who and how many composed the company, 
and how they came to "go a fishing." They noted that 
Jesus " stood " on the shore. The distance of the ship from 
the land is given. The ordinary fact that Peter pulled on 
his coat before lie swam to land is not omitted. The exact 
number of the fish is given. They came to land in the little 
ship. They find not simply a fire, its condition is marked, — 
a fire of " coals." In the two appearances recorded before 
by John we have few particulars. The attention is called 
mainly to the Saviour's person. In comparing this with the 
similar story in the fifth chapter of Luke, we find the latter 
much more scant in details. Now, what can this minuteness 
of mention mean, except to convey the deep impress of this 
event on the disciples' minds ? This third meeting with the 
Saviour touched them profoundly. It glorified every little 
item connected with the meeting, so that we know not only 
the kind of coat which Peter had at this time, — a " fisher's 
coat," — but how he put it on. These details, whatever 
other value they may have, certainly show how the hearts of 
the seven fishermen were wrought upon. 

Impressions, feelings, move men. Thought is born of them, 
and the whole course of life may be changed by them. The 
stars have no voice, no language, but their " line is gone out 
through all the earth." The story before us is but a story ; 
" Jesus showed himself to his disciples " in a " manner " they 
never forgot. There is a vagueness in the account, as there 
was not a little mystery in the appearance. Whence came 



456 CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

that fire of coals, and the fish laid thereon, and the bread ? 
This very wonder must have intensified the whole scene for 
them. Intensity was necessary. From the feelings of this 
hour they were to find not only the course of their own life 
but also the wisdom to direct the world's. In the trans- 
figuration they saw his divinity ; in the foot-washing they 
perceived his humility ; and now in this hour of fishing they 
had set before them the lesson of their coming leadership of 
the world. Not a solitary rule for the future is here given ; 
there is no instruction ; Jesus appears to them in a way to 
make them think. And such thought is free. No man 
labors well anywhere, and certainly not for God, unless the 
centre of his activity is freedom itself. These seven disciples 
must gather from what they now see, how to serve Jesus. 
There is no rule to bind them. In taking these fish they 
learn how they are to catch men. 

Just here it can be remarked, first of all, that the disciples 
would surely recall, instantly recall, that former fishing scene 
in which, as in this, they took nothing until Jesus taught 
them how. Left to themselves, their labors were abortive, 
but under his direction many fish were taken. In a word, 
his guidance was necessary to future success. 

Again, they could not fail to remember how on that for- 
mer occasion Jesus had promised to make them fishers of 
men. In this recollection the prose of the work in hand 
would at once change to poetry. Their minds would be 
elevated from the level of the mere fisherman to the moun- 
tainous height of Jesus' purpose for them, — a purpose that 
embraced a world in its mercy. The work in hand was a 
parable of the glorious work which they were to do. These 
who were winning fish were to win men, — an office as much 
greater as a man is better than a fish. The sharpest rebuke 
the disciples ever received from the tender-hearted Lord was 
occasioned by their failure to be impressed by his feeding 



Lesson XII] CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. 457 

the multitudes. He was educating the twelve ; and when 
they missed the lesson, Jesus sharply said, " How is it that 
ye do not understand ? " The men who changed the religion 
of the Eoman empire were not so dull that they could now 
miss another lesson. Jesus had not come to them this morn- 
ing merely to show them where to cast a fishing-net. His 
heart, which could be satisfied with nothing less than the 
world's love, — the w'orld, for which he died, — was earnest 
in equipping his disciples to win that love. And could they 
possibly misunderstand his effort ? They had set out to 
catch some fish. Jesus graciously comes and converts their 
honest intent into a parable to instruct them how to win the 
world. 

Once more, the fish in that earlier miracle of their history, 
and the fish caught at this time, were secured only when 
Jesus showed where to cast the net. But there is one 
striking difference in the two cases, pictured by T. D. Ber- 
nard, as follows : " The gospels have been brought to a fit 
and, as it seems from the final words, an intended conclu- 
sion at the end of the twentieth chapter of St. John ; but 
another chapter is added, as if dictated by some after-thought, 
which in its effect links the whole gospel record to the book 
which succeeds it. The miracle which had already fore- 
shadowed the work of the fishers of men is repeated, but 
with altered circumstances, typical of the change which was 
at hand. For now the Lord is no longer with them in the 
ship, but stands dimly seen upon the shore ; yet from thence 
issues his directions, and shows the presence of his power 
working with them in their seemingly lonely toil." 

The Saviour's acts are not less instructive than his utter- 
ances. After this hour the apostles knew how Jesus would 
guide them, and that that guidance would issue from the 
shores of the other world. 

2. Jesus is revealed to the disciples in their work. Here 



458 CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

again we are brought face to face with the earlier miracle. 
There it is Peter who is impressed with the majesty and 
holiness of Jesus. He had seen many wonders before, but 
that one in which the net " enclosed a great multitude of 
fishes " was in his own line of things. He understood it as 
he had not understood other miracles. It revealed the 
Christ to him, and in honest attestation of Jesus' purity 
Peter falls down before him and worships, confessing his 
own sinfulness. Again the work discloses the workman; 
only this time it is John who first makes the discovery, de- 
claring to his fellow-disciples, " It is the Lord." But they 
now know him in a worthier way. Before, the cry was, 
" Depart from me, for I am a sinful man ; " but now Peter, 
although he had grievously denied the Saviour, is so eager 
to get to him and to look in his eyes that he cannot await 
the movement of the boat. He girds on his fisher's coat, 
and plunging into the sea, swims ashore. " It is the Lord," 
said the beloved disciple ; for again Jesus had come to them 
in a sphere in which they were at home, in toil with which 
they were perfectly acquainted. That net full of fishes was 
such a revelation of the Christ to them as they had not 
reached in the more wonderful miracles of feeding the multi- 
tude, casting out demons, or raising the dead ; for in these 
he did his own work, but in the draught of fishes he helped the 
disciples in theirs. Though the power was still all his own, 
he became a fellow-helper with them. Henceforth he will 
work mightily through them and with them. 

This revelation was to serve the disciples in two ways. 
It was necessary that the "Christ should suffer and rise 
from the dead." To convince the world of the latter fact 
was the apostles' great task. The resurrection is the key- 
stone of the Christian religion. But what a stupendous tax 
on men's minds, to lay it upon them to believe that one who 
died was now alive again, and alive for evermore ! Man was 



Lesson XII.] CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. 459 

never challenged to accept a greater truth. The apostles 
staggered under it. Thomas absolutely refused to believe. 
Yet to establish this fact in the world there must be in- 
disputable testimony. The witnesses must be so qualified 
that they could go forth with " many infallible proofs," 
so that they could say, " We did eat and drink with him 
after he rose from the dead." 

Again, it was necessary to establish not only the fact that 
Jesus was alive after his passion, but also his activity in the 
affairs of men. The first two appearances recorded in John 
do little more than • prove that he is ; but in this one there 
is the additional idea that he co-operates with the disciples. 
It is made all the richer by recalling that former draught, 
so that they would lose some of their superstitious awe, and 
feel that their Master was again quite like himself; they 
had seen him thus before. For Jesus' death and resurrec- 
tion do not take him from his friends, but give him to them. 

They needed this revelation of him in work ; for men are 
most of all sceptical on the point of the Lord's active parti- 
cipation in their efforts and needs. One says, " If thou wilt, 
thou canst make me clean ; " another cries, " If thou canst 
do anything ; " but the true heart alone says, Thou wilt, 
thou canst, thou dost, — so that the apostles afterward re- 
ported not what they had done, but what " God had done 
with them ; " and Mark sums up their history with similar 
words, " tTie Lord working with them."- Christian faith is 
more than to believe historic biblical facts. It believes 
God in Christ to be the one present, working agent in 
the world to-day. And these disciples, as they gathered 
these fishes this morning, must have been convinced 
that in all the work before them they would find Christ 
co-operating with them. 

3. Jesus eats with the disciples after their work. This 
breakfast is every way beautiful. It seems to be Jesus' aim 



460 CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. [Fourth Quarter. 

in this whole morning's scene, its climax; for as soon as 
they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals glowing 
on the beach, and food in preparation. With this the 
disciples had had nothing to do. Still they have a share 
in providing the meal, for he says, " Bring of the fish 
which ye have now caught." He graciously ascribes the 
capture to them. When all is ready he asks them to 
"come and dine." There was a strange backwardness on 
their part. They knew that he was the risen Lord, and 
yet none ventured to say it. While they hesitate, Jesus 
comes, takes bread and gives them, and fish likewise. 
Probably he ate with them; but it is certain that he was 
the serving host. With the keen appetites created by the 
night's hard toil, and with the loved Lord at the table, it 
was a breakfast to be enjoyed and evermore remembered. 

This breakfast, like all the rest of the story, was a 
lesson and a prophecy. The training of the twelve before 
the resurrection differs greatly from that which succeeded 
it. This stupendous event wrought a change in the man- 
ner and conduct of the disciples when in the presence of 
the risen Lord. They had earlier been for the most part 
very familiar with him. They did not hesitate to advise 
him, to find fault with him, even to rebuke him. But 
now there is a spell upon them ; they are awed, and have 
lost their freedom. Before him "none of them durst ask 
him, Who art thou ? " This was unlike their former lib- 
erty ; for Jesus himself was changed in appearance, or why 
should they have thought of asking, " Who art thou ? " 

In that earlier instruction the aim was to lead these 
men to say of that meek and lowly son of Mary, " Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God." They said it 
and believed it ; but how could they know its fathomless 
significance ? They must go deeper into the lesson. They 
had not lost Christ. If they were too familiar before, they 



Lesson XII.] CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. 461 

were too much restrained now. The end of the incarna- 
tion, the cross, and the resurrection is to bring God and 
man into family relationship. It was one who sat at this 
breakfast this morning who afterward wrote, " And truly 
our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus 
Christ." The truth involves two elements : man is more 
divine than he supposes, and God is more human than we 
suppose. If this .startles, read again those words of the 
Almighty which occur so early in the sacred book, " Let 
us make man in our image." The Complete Man claimed 
to be the Son of God. Now the common meeting-place 
of the family is the table. There all appear on the same 
level, — the parent, the child, the friend. To eat together 
is an avowal of the highest relationship ; and so Jesus eats 
with the disciples to win their trust anew, to show that 
he is still one with them, to picture his fellowship with 
them now and evermore. 

The breakfast was also a prophecy of the time when the 
saint and the Saviour shall meet together to rejoice in the 
fellowship of a completed work. Paul wrote to those whom 
he had won to the Lord, " What is our hope or joy or crown 
of rejoicing ? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord 
Jesus Christ ? " These converts must be to the apostle's 
honor at the last. The fellowship and joy of this breakfast 
were based not alone on what the Lord had done, but also 
on what they had done ; for he said, " Bring of the fish 
which ye have now caught." 



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